Cassoulet

As you walk around the walled city in Carcassonne you will see many restaurants offering Cassoulet. What is this dish and where does it come from?

Cassoulet is almost the national dish of the south east of France. It is a very rich stew or casserole made from white haricot beans, pork skin and a meat which can be goose, duck, mutton or pork.

The name, cassoulet, comes from the the cassole, an earthenware pot  which is round deep and has slanting sides.

Cassoulet is served very hot and this rich dish is a wonderful treat on cold days.

However it is "fatty" and especially so if goose is used.

We think that "Hot sun and cool shadow..savouring the food,history and mystery of the Languedoc" by Angela Murrills has a great introduction to Cassoulet

" A steaming sea of pinky-brown beans broken by archipelagos of brown sausage and islands of confit and announced with a stentorian blast of garlic.Gutsy in flavour and texture, the sausage meat was coarsely chunked and stuffed so tightly into its skin that it exploded when i cut into it...Every bite was an experience,every bean permeated with meaty juices and aromatic herbs.

This wasn't the delicate structure of Debussy or Satie;it was brass bands, Wagner, the entire Ring Cycle, all of Beethoven's Ninth played at full volume, and it was slowly ,inexorably ,anchoring me to my chair".

Brilliant.

A wikicommons picture from Castelnaudary the home of Cassoulet

 Image courtesy of Wikimedia commons.

 Additional notes taken from the Rough Guide to Languedoc and Roussillon

"In the desolate uplands pork dominates in the form of chops, feet and a range of regional sausages,whilst sheep and goats provide milk for the cheeses, both pungent and sweet, and a series of micro climate valleys produce a bounty of fruit."