This is the oldest and most traditional Menton festival.
It gathers the whole population around a gigantic cauldron of bean soup, along with all sorts of vegetables and morsels of meat. It is held in August, on the Henry Bennet Quay. It is said to have originated, in the Middle Ages.
Tradition has it that an epidemic of the plague decimated the population, who were besieged by Barbary pirates, and caused famine. The survivors made giant soup with all that remained in the way of food, in order to survive. Faced with such abundance, the assailants fled, totally discouraged.
