Off to a night of Cassoulet…

Cassoulet, that best of bean feasts, is everyday fare for a peasant but ambrosia for a gastronome, though its ideal consumer is a …300-pound blocking back who has been splitting firewood nonstop for the last twelve hours on a subzero day in Manitoba.         – Julia Child

We are about to head out for a special cassoulet dinner.  I was asked to pull together some notes for the attendees, and this is what I came up with:

Cassoulet is one of those dishes over which there is endless drama. Like bouillabaisse in Marseilles, paella in Spain, and chili in Texas, it is a dish for which there are innumerable recipes and about which discussions quickly turn fierce.  Cassoulet is not so much a recipe as an excuse for an argument.  Cassoulet is said to date back to the 14th century siege of Castelnaudary during the Hundred Years’ War, when citizens created a communal dish so hearty their revivified soldiers sent the invaders packing.

I was 8 years old when I tasted my first cassoulet, and it has been a lifelong love affair.  When it appears on a menu, I am compelled to order it, and have never been served the same dish twice.  Lamb, rabbit, breadcrumbs, pheasant, partridge and varieties of bean too numerous to mention have all made an appearance at one time or another.  When I first prepared the dish shortly after we moved to North Carolina, one of the guests stated that it was most definitely the first time cassoulet had been served in Northampton County.  If I am remembered for nothing else, let it be that I brought civilization to the wilderness.

A 1960’s copy of Larousse Gastronomique by Prosper Montagne quotes a historic comedy about le cassoulet de Castelnaudary at chez Clemence where the woman of the house has been cooking the same cassoulet for 20 years.

"She replenishes the pot sometimes with goose, sometimes with pork fat, sometimes she puts in a sausage … The basis remains, and this ancient and precious substance gives it a taste, which one finds in the paintings of the old Venetian masters, in the amber flesh tints of their women."

A seductive dinner, yes. But to the French, so much more.

Prosper prosaically described cassoulet as a “Haricot (shell) bean stew”, and goes on to quote “certain gastronomes” who insist that the cassoulet from Castelnaudary (in South West France) is the only true version, and “serious culinary writers” (including himself) recognise a “Trinity” of cassoulets – those of Castelnaudary, Carcassonne, and Toulouse.

He then goes on to differentiate them:

“The three types of cassoulet should have the following differences: that of Castelnaudary (the forebear, the leader), is prepared with fresh pork, ham, knuckle of pork, and fresh bacon rinds; that of Carcassonne with the addition to the above of a shortened leg of mutton, and partridges in season; that of Toulouse, always in addition to the ingredients already mentioned for the cassoulet de Castelnaudary: breast of pork, Toulouse sausage, mutton (neck or boned breast) and confit d’oie (preserved goose) or <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-h

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In the end, the true liturgy of cassoulet isn’t in the recipe, but rather in the special moment when friends gather around a large, steaming earthenware caçòla and meal becomes Mass. Cassoulet has such a religion around it because it’s the plat de partage — the dish of sharing.  When a cassoulet arrives at the table, bubbling with aromas, something magical happens — it’s Communion around a dish.