Thirteen desserts of Provence: where to taste it at Christmas markets

The thirteen desserts of Provence are served on Christmas Eve: pompe à l’huile, dried fruit and nuts known as mendiants, white and black nougat, fresh fruit and candied fruit. They close the gros souper of 24 December. Provençal Christmas markets sell every one of them, stall by stall, from the baker’s pompe to the confectioner’s nougat.

Where to buy the thirteen desserts at a Christmas market in Provence

No chalet sells “the thirteen desserts” as a single dish. You put your table together as you go from stall to stall: the nougat maker, the confectioner for the calissons, the candied fruit seller, the baker for the pompe à l’huile and the navettes. The markets that carry the tradition are all in Provence and on the Côte d’Azur.

In Marseille, the 13 desserts are found next to the santon fair. Aix-en-Provence, Toulon, Arles and Avignon run the sweet stalls of the Christmas table: in Toulon, calissons, pompe à l’huile and candied fruit. Aubagne lines up nougat, calissons, dried fruit and pompe à l’huile. Draguignan offers the thirteen desserts of the gros souper, with nougat, calissons and pompe à l’huile. In Carpentras, nougat sits next to candied fruit from Apt.

Nougat, calissons, pompe: putting together your thirteen desserts at the market

The base is the same from one village to the next. It comes down to seven products:

the four mendiants, dried fig, almond, walnut or hazelnut, and raisin, which you will find at the dried fruit and nut seller’s stall,
the two nougats, white and black, at the nougat maker’s stall,
the pompe à l’huile, from the market baker.

The rest varies from one family and one village to the next: dates, fresh fruit, candied fruit, calissons, oreillettes, quince paste. Nothing obliges you to buy all thirteen at once, and that is the point of the market: each stall covers one or two items on the list, and you go home with what was missing.

The gros souper, the table and the history of the tradition are told in our guide to Christmas in Provence.