Our family table is getting ready for Sunday's star attraction: cassoulet!
Over 2 days, a feast slowly simmers into being!
Everything is organised in advance with our local friends. Castelnaudary's PGI lingot beans take a dip in chilly water for several hours.
Next comes a hot bath lasting over an hour, with a few vegetables, aromatic herbs and their friend, the bacon.
Toulouse sausage and duck bask in a little fat until golden.
Her Majesty the cassole emerges from hibernation, offering this whole merry company the perfect earthenware dish for several hours of slow cooking.
Purists will wait for the dish to cool before returning it to the oven. The crust formed through repeated cooking will shine in all its glory!
The aroma of Castelnaudary's signature dish gradually fills every nook and cranny of the house.
It's sizzling, and it smells delicious!
At last, the hostess rings the bell: everyone gathers around the table in good company!
Extract from the confrérie du cassoulet.com website: “The origins of cassoulet date back to medieval times. Legend places the birth of cassoulet during the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453). During the English siege of Castelnaudary, the inhabitants, threatened with famine, pooled everything they had to feed the town's soldiers. (...)
In 1929, Prosper Montagné
a celebrated chef in Paris
originally from Carcassonne, acknowledged the supremacy of Castelnaudary cassoulet in his book entitled “Le Festin Occitan”: “Cassoulet is the God of Occitan cuisine. One God in three persons: God the Father, the cassoulet of Castelnaudary; God the Son, that of Carcassonne; and the Holy Spirit, that of Toulouse.” ”
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