We spent the final days of our cassoulet trip roaming around the
region and ducking in and out of the Fête, and soon realising that the Fete du
Cassoulet is about much more than one single dish. The quiet and sleepy town
of Castelnaudary is filled with bands, bars, markets
and thousands of revellers, who pile into huge tents to eat steaming pots of
cassoulet; like Oktoberfest only with extra beans.
With all the action and merriment, the regional dish almost becomes secondary to the fun. Plenty of cassoulet is eaten, though it is not the best you can find or make. But to be honest, this is hard to fault. Local
producers – largely wine growers, goose and duck farmers, bee keepers and charcuterie
makers – line the streets selling fantastic stuff. A flotilla of handmade
paddleboats - each representing a different local youth club - snakes down the
river. Bolshy teenagers edge their way, one by one, down a horizontal flagpole over
the river, trying to grab the French flag before throwing themselves into the water.
And the drinking – there’s more than a drop of beer consumed, which leads to
some pretty amusing dancing.
For the dedicated food-lover, there is still so much to
enjoy in the region. The weekly food market at Revel (Saturdays) has producers
and growers of the most incredible tomatoes, aubergines, garlic, goose, duck,
honey, preserves, poultry, rillettes, charcuterie and of course lingot beans.
Veer off the beaten track and away from the cassoulet tents, into a small,
family-run restaurants where you can find very good, honest and truly local food
at a tiny price. There’s a co-operative that takes in meat from all of the
local farmers, selling it from a shop which has queues snaking right out of the
door. And the unofficial bartering system is wonderful! Tomatoes are swapped
for strawberries, whole lambs shared around the neighbours in return for a bit
of help with shepherding. Gluts get distributed among friends and neighbours
and it's nice to see that people are watching out for one another.
But what of the cassoulet? We’ve got a pretty good idea in
our heads. Free range British goose, confit in rare breed pork fat, our own
Toulouse sausages and fat cubes of Old Spot pork belly. We’re heading back to
Blighty to have a play with the recipe – and we’d love your advice if you have any. Have you eaten or do you know how to make truly tremendous cassoulet? Go on, share your wisdom...
And here's what to do when you have so much veg that you can't eat any more.
