“It’s hard to go wrong when you can walk around the corner and get a perfectly flaky croissant or pain au chocolate for a euro and change,” reflects filmmaker Scott Petersen on his love for France.
Based in Southern California, Scott took French in high school and, for the past several years, has travelled all over the country, with a special interest in sampling local specialties. “As I was researching a trip to Nice, the guidebook mentioned this dish called socca, which sounded great to me. Just before leaving, I met a guy here in LA who was from Nice and he told me I had to try it.”
And so he did. At Chez Pipo. At Chez Thérésa. At René Socca … in fact, Scott was so taken by the old wood-fired brick ovens and the rustic food being served to locals, he figured there had to be a good documentary in there somewhere. “Food tells a fascinating story about history, culture, geography and people. Socca is really known only to people on the Côte d’Azur, I don’t think you can even find it in Paris.”
We Eat Socca Here tells the story of the chickpea-flour crêpe through the lens of the restaurateurs and entrepreneurs who keep the wood-fired flame burning: Steeve Bernardo (Chez Pipo), Stephane Pentolini (René Socca) and Jean-Luc Mekersi (Chez Thérésa). “From its early days in a makeshift food cart serving fishermen to current day restaurants feeding locals and tourists alike from 200-year-old ovens, socca is an indelible part of Nice’s cultural fabric,” the 52-year-old documentary maker enthuses.
Scott produced and directed the award-winning, feature-length documentary Out Of The Loop, which explores Chicago’s underground music scene (Veruca Salt, the Jesus Lizard, and Steve Albini) and, in 2003, he produced, directed and edited Scrabylon, a documentary about the cutthroat world of Scrabble® tournaments. His CV includes TV credits on Antiques Roadshow, Rescue 911 and Unsolved Mysteries.
He also worked in the office of legendary filmmaker John Hughes (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Home Alone, Uncle Buck). “I’m a bit too young to have worked on Ferris Bueller, but, when I was there as a young adult, it was quite an experience seeing the giant moviemaking process up close.”
Scott’s 9-minute short We Eat Socca Here debuted on Amazon.com on March 30. “For me, it is about sharing a small part of French culture with everyone who loves food,” he reveals. (Even with restaurants in France closed due to Covid, you can still get socca to go.)
“I am hoping the next time I eat in a restaurant here in California that has a wood-fired oven that I can persuade them to add socca to their menu. When that happens, my job will be done,” says Scott Petersen.
Maybe Scott will bring Monaco’s national barbagiuan dish to the big screen next.