I just read Cassoulet Confessions: Food, France, Family, and the Stew That Saved My Soul by Sylvie Bigar. Bigar, a Swiss-French writer, is obsessed with the south of France and cassoulet, the classic southern French bean dish. Her Jewish Ashkenazi family (diaspora Jews who settled in the Alsace region of France, and before that, Poland) had never served a dish remotely like cassoulet. All the same, Bigar starts to wonder if her family has Sephardic roots (Jews forced from Spain during the Inquisition in the 14th and 15th centuries, many of whom settled in northern France). In a bit of mental sleight of hand, she wonders if that could account for the sense of deep familiarity she feels for cassoulet.
She writes, “Had my ancestors … stopped in the southwest of France on their way to Alsace?… Were there ancestral beans running through my veins?” Bigar braids her family’s escape from France during the Second World War with her search for her spiritual home. Some time later when she is served cholent, an ancient Ashkenazi bean dish which might be the precursor to cassoulet, Bigar realizes she has superimposed her love of the south of France onto her imaginings of being a Mediterranean Jew. As she eats the cholent, she realizes that cassoulet was not the answer but a clue, “remnant of my Eastern European tradition … the taste memory of my ancestors.”
Reading Bigar’s work led me straight to my own kitchen, where I put great northern beans and smoked pork hock on the stove. As they simmered, I remembered a trip to the Languedoc, the south-central region of la belle France.
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Twenty years ago, I had planned a solo walk along the length of southern France’s Canal du Midi, a former trade route which threads its way for hundreds of kilometres from a river that meets the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. I’d expected to consume cassoulet in all its variations along the way, starting in Toulouse, then on to Castelnaudary and the endpoint, Carcassonne. Instead, ordered to rest by my doctor after a serious illness, I travelled with a friend. I saw the Canal du Midi but didn’t walk it.
But I ate cassoulet. In Toulouse, my cassoulet was filled with sausages, tender beans, duck confit, crisp breadcrumbs on top. In la cité, the ancient walled heart of Carcassonne, my beans arrived garnished with pork belly, ham hock and duck confit.
It wasn’t enough. When I came home, I recreated every version of pork and beans I’d ever sampled, and more that were new to me.
Cassoulet dates back to medieval times, when dried beans and preserved meat stored in fat were staples. The meat varied — wild game birds, duck, goose, lamb shoulder and many pork cuts, from trotters to sausages. Across the Pyrenees, a similar bean dish is made with shreds of jamón ibérico, the Spanish air-cured pork haunch. So first we eat. Then, like Sylvie Bigar, we compare our pork and beans recipes.
Canadian Cassoulet
I cook pork hock separately from beans to control salt levels — salting the beans during cooking keeps them from splitting and breaking. Substitute or embellish smoked pork hock with sauteed bacon or pork belly, ham, smoked or fresh sausage, prosciutto, capicolla or pancetta, browned chicken thighs or duck legs. Serve with simple greens and crusty bread. Serves 10-12.
- 1 pound dried navy, cannellini or great northern beans
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 smoked pork hock
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 12 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 onions, finely diced
- 2 bay leaves
- 2-3 sprigs fresh rosemary, minced
- 4-5 sprigs fresh thyme, minced
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 2 or 3 whole star anise
- 1/2 stick cinnamon, broken
- 2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
- 2 tablespoons Lea & Perrins
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon herb-infused wine vinegar
- kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Put the beans in a pot and pick out any stones or broken beans. Add salt and about 12 cups cold water. Cover and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until tender, about two hours. At the same time, put the pork hock into a potful of water, then cover and simmer.
Heat the oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot. Add the garlic and sauté for a minute, then add and cook the onions, season with salt and add small amounts of water as needed to prevent browning. Cook until tender. Add the herbs and spices, pomegranate molasses, Lea & Perrins and tomato paste. Stir the mixture into the beans regardless of their stage of doneness. Cover snugly. Do not let the pot go dry — add a bit of the cooking water from the pork hock if the level of liquid drops below the beans’ surface. Simmer until the beans are tender.
Remove the pork hock from its pot, reserving the cooking water. Remove the meat from the bone, shred or chop the meat and then add to the beans. Cover partially to encourage reduction and cook until all the flavours are mellowed, stirring often. Taste. Add salt, pepper and a dash of vinegar before serving.
