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"FLAVORS"
FROM OCCITAN - THE
CASSOULET
The cassoulet is definitely the God of the occitan
cuisine, a God made of 3 entities: the Father or
the cassoulet of Castelnaudary, the Son, or the
cassoulet of Carcassonne and the Holy Spirit, the
cassoulet of Toulouse.
The origin of this traditional dish of Languedoc
can be dated back far in the history of greediness.
Nevertheless, some historians specialized in
gastronomy assert that, as beans have been
introduced only after the discovery of the New
World, the history of the cassoulet is not older
than 500 years.
Some others, those who prefer legends to history,
assert that Christopher Columbus, especially in the
southwest part of the country, has introduced beans
in France a long time before the discovery of the
Americas.
Referring to the legends of Castelnaudary, those
historians might have say the truth. Indeed,
according to it, the first bean based dished was
born during the 100 years war, from 1337 to 1453,
obviously far before 1492, by the time the British
Army was surrounding Castelnaudary. This dish then
has been through many changes and became the famous
so-called "Casolet", glory of the Languedoc
gastronomy. The legends also explains in details
the way this wonderful dish came to the world:
Before going over the offensive against the enemy,
and in order to give to the besieged some
"courage", the provost marshal had the idea to
gather in one only dish all the victuals people
could have brought.
There were lots of beans left in the shops of the
besieged town, let's remind once more that was a
long time before the discovery of the Americas,
which enabled the garrison's cooks to create a huge
dish made if various meat juice such as fresh and
salted pork, sheep, gooses and sausages.
Filled with this copious banquet they obviously
served with all the wines of the region, people of
Castelnaudary cleared the table in a huge noise and
rushed straight into the British army.
It was such a raving rush and the sound of the
explosion was so strong that the besieging,
thinking at that moment that the besieged town was
holding a big artillery, fled in panic and never
stop running until they reached the shore of the
English Channel, as the legends says…
For some other historians, the origin of the
cassoulet is even older. They pretend that the
Arabs introduced in the 7th century in
Carcassès the culture of beans called at
that time "white beans", teaching local people how
to arrange this leguminous plant in a sheep meat
based stew which seems to be the real ancestor of
the current cassoulet.
Whatever it started in the 7th or 15th century, the
cassoulet is still the most typical dish of the
Occitan cuisine and appear is many works of famous
southern poets. Here is an occitan poem dedicated
to the glory of the cassoulet, written in the
middle the last century by some unknown author.
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