Quest for CASSOULET
Peter Hum takes his quest for the world’s best rendition of the classic meat and beans dish to southwestern France, where the meal is far more than a peasant’s casserole.
The late Canadian writer Mavis Gallant, who lived in Paris, once told me that the great and ribsticking French dish cassoulet ought to be eaten just once a year, in winter ideally, presumably because it can be so heavy.
Still, during my summer vacation in Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées, also known as Southwestern France’s prime cassoulet country, I ate as much cassoulet as I could digest, at three dinners in a row.
Some might dismiss cassoulet as simply meat and beans. Others would call it the world’s best rendition of meat and beans.
Archetypically, cassoulet is a slow-cooked, peasant’s casserole consisting of pork sausages (from Toulouse, if possible, some say), white beans (from the town of Tarbes only, say others), duck confit, duck fat, breadcrumbs and assorted herbs and seasonings.
Lamb or pork shoulder can make its way into a cassoulet. Sometimes tomatoes, celery, onions or carrots do too, although arguments between purists and innovators might result. A bread crumb topping is either mandatory or a huge faux pas.
I wanted to sample cassoulet during my travels to get a sense of how the dish varied in a region where cassoulet is so iconic that it features on postcards and souvenir placemats. I wasn’t disappointed.
One night at the restaurant of the Hotel Lons in the town of Foix, I had the Cassoulet Ariègeois, named after the nearby Ariège River. This cassoulet variant featured lamb shank rather than duck confit, added carrots and onions, and wasn’t bad.
The next night, I had cassoulet at a greasy spoon in Foix, and it confirmed that there was such a thing as disappointing cassoulet. Its beans were weak and underseasoned, its sausage was just OK and its duck confit made me sad with its flabby exterior and dry interior. This was cassoulet cooked out of obligation, not out of regional pride or love.
The best cassoulet of my vacation was had at Auberge du Balestié, cooked by its owner, a 37-year-old British ex-pat named Alex Shafiq, who was in fact a newcomer to cooking cassoulet.
His cassoulet, which he had never made in Manchester but which he learned to cook under the tutelage of the modest, cosy auberge’s previous owner, teemed with very rich, flavourful beans and moist, satisfying duck confit.
Seven in 10 of the auberge’s customers, Shafiq told me, are from all over France, and the cassoulet, along with quail stuffed with foie gras, sell well with them, although more so with men rather than women. “It is a heavy dish and served piping hot, but still very popular in the height of the summer, although I would personally say this is a perfect winter dish,” Shafiq said.
Shafiq said he’s familiar with many variations of cassoulet, but he sticks to a classic interpretation. “I’ve never really ventured off-piste, so to speak. It works, it goes down well, just leave it at that. The key elements are the preparation and slow cooking, you need to be patient, it cannot be rushed.”
That said, Shafiq’s cassoulet prep is made easier because he can easily buy confit duck legs rather than cook them from scratch.
Shafiq said that he doesn’t eat his own cassoulet because he doesn’t eat pork. “My father-in-law and wife are the tasters!” he says.
Would a pork-free cassoulet be possible? “Maybe that’s something I should try.”