Quel Cassoulet!

Page 1

A Toulouse version of cassoulet

Quel Cassoulet! by Jeffrey T. Iverson

I 22

on to become part and parcel of the Southwest’s Occitan identity—the langue d’oc was spoken throughout the southwest, except in the Basque and Catalan regions. Cassoulet’s name is thought to come from cassole (caçóla in Occitan), a wide and deep glazed earthenware cooking dish, supposedly invented by a 14th-century Italian potter working in Issel near Castelnaudary. It was strong enough to withstand the blazing temperatures of local bakers’ ovens, where the hearty concoction—originally called an estofat or estouffade, as in stew—was cooked. Early versions of the dish usually used dried fava beans; the slender white haricots lingots, or white kidney beans, traditionally used today first arrived from South America in the 16th century. It’s said that Catherine de Medici’s brother gave her a bag of them as a wedding present when she married the French crown prince who later became Henri II. Among her many titles after the wedding was Countess of Lauragais, a region southeast

l F R A N C E T O D AY l M AY 2 0 0 9 l W W W . F R A N C E T O D AY . C O M

Cassoulet © Comité Régional de Tourisme Midi-Pyrénées – D. Viet

n France, cuisine de terroir refers to the culinary savoir faire and the traditional dishes that emerged from its various regions through the centuries. Its continued existence reflects a laudable Gallic résistance to global trends toward the mass production and standardization of food. While many such regional specialties have fallen out of fashion, perhaps no classic French dish has fared as well, attained such iconic status and attracted such passionate connoisseurs as the simple casserole of beans, meat and herbs from southwestern France called cassoulet. Indeed, cassoulet is the stuff of legend. As the story goes, it dates back to the 14thcentury siege of Castelnaudary during the Hundred Years’ War. With the city surrounded, desperate citizen soldiers are said to have gathered their remaining provisions to create a communal dish robust enough to power their counterattack and send their invaders packing. The battle was in fact lost, but cassoulet went

of Toulouse, where she encouraged cultivation of the lingot. Even today some claim that Lauragais lingots are the best. But then there are the fat white beans of Tarbes, 100 miles west of Toulouse.... In fact, so entwined did the dish become with the region that several cities eventually laid claim to the one “true” recipe. Chef Prosper Montagné, author of the first Larousse Gastronomique, tried to quell the feud in 1928 with his Le Festin Occitan—the sacred text of cassoulet lovers—in which he first described his gastronomic “holy trinity”: “Cassoulet is the God of Occitan cuisine,” he wrote. “A god in three persons: God the Father is that of Castelnaudary, God the Son that of Carcassonne, and the Holy Spirit that of Toulouse.” Today, few chefs have taken to heart Montagné’s writings or disseminated cassoulet lore around the world more than Carcassonne chef Jean-Claude Rodriguez. Founder of the Académie Universelle du Cassoulet, Rodriguez has spread the teachings of Montagné from Quebec to Tokyo, and brought together in conciliatory spirit cassoulet lovers from erstwhile quarreling towns across the Languedoc. For while Rodriguez appreciates the Castelnaudary legend, he says the real history of cassoulet began not


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.