French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [36]
From the Languedoc also come two more dishes among the most famous in the whole repertoire of French provincial cookery: the Cassoulet of Toulouse, with its variations from Carcassonne, Castelnaudary and Castelnau, and the Brandade de Morue (described on page 304), said to have originated at Nîmes.
The first, that sumptuous amalgamation of haricot beans, sausage, pork, mutton and preserved goose, aromatically spiced with garlic and herbs, is cooked at great length in an earthenware pot, emerging with a golden crust which conceals an interior of gently bubbling, creamy beans and uniquely savoury meats. A number of great cooks and restaurateurs have come out of the Languedoc, the most famous being Prosper Montagné, who had a small but world-renowned restaurant in the rue de l’Échelle in Paris between the wars. He described the Cassoulet over and over again in his many works on cookery (apart from the numerous books which bear his name he also compiled and edited the Larousse Gastronomique, a truly immense labour), and used to tell the story that in the town of Castelnaudary where he was born he went one ordinary working day to the shoemaker’s and saw that the doors were locked and the shutters closed. Fearing a death in the house, he went to have a closer look. Pinned to the door was a paper bearing the notice ‘FERMÉ POUR CAUSE DE CASSOULET.’
It was probably Montagné who did more than anyone else to popularise this remarkable farmhouse dish in Paris and to send it on its travels round the world, although Anatole France had already written about it in lyrical, if somewhat fanciful terms, and Auguste Colombié, also a native of the Languedoc and one of the great teaching cooks of the latter part of the nineteenth century, had also published recipes for it. It was Colombié who, to the great indignation of his professional colleagues (‘Giving away professional secrets—we shall all be out of work,’ they said) founded the first cookery school in Paris for ‘les dames et demoiselles du monde.’
I have a crude and brightly coloured picture of him demonstrating cookery to a crowd of these elegantly hatted and plumed young women. Two of them, in flowered toques and high-boned muslin collars, lacy aprons pinned over their sweeping gowns, are gingerly stirring and chopping as M. Colombié beams indulgently from behind his primitive gas stove. It is not easy to visualise these frail and pampered-looking beauties coming to grips with a hefty, earthy dish like the cassoulet, but then one must remember that it takes more than an elegant dress and a swirl of frills and laces to come between a Frenchwoman and the enjoyment of her food.
Batterie de Cuisine
Kitchen Equipment
SINCE 1960, when this book was first published, scores of new kitchen equipment shops catering for the needs of the serious amateur cook have been established in London and throughout the provinces. There are now (1977) so many of these shops that to single out any particular names tends to be misleading. Stocks, prices, and buying policies are subject to rapid change. Supplies of kitchenware, whether imported or English made, are erratic, owing to heavy demand and limited output. Under the circumstances any list of shops is out of date almost before it has gone to press. Where possible in the present edition I have therefore deleted references to stockists of specialized equipment.
There is one development in the manufacture of cooking equipment which I think that many people will find particularly welcome. This is the great improvement in recent years in the quality