Cassoulet is a bean stew which is cooked in an earthenware casserole, hence the name. It is one of the classic dishes of the Languedoc, and of France. This famous stew - and “stew” hardly conveys the complexity of its flavours - is subject to much debate about what constitutes a “true” cassoulet. Cassoulet is a paradigm for a culinary understanding of the Languedoc, for there is a different recipe in every kitchen. The history of cassoulet is linked to the area of Languedoc. One legend places the birth of cassoulet during the siege of Castelnaudary by the Black Prince, Edward the Prince of Wales, in 1355. The besieged townspeople gathered their remaining food to create a big stew cooked in a cauldron. There is however some circumstantial evidence pointing to the celebrated cuisine of the Arabs as the provenance of cassoulet, already having made its mark on the beans stews to the south in Muslim Spain of the twelfth century.
Catalonia also has a close historical association of Languedoc with the Aragonese-Catalan Empire. Cassoulet has alot in common with the bean and sausage dishes of Catalonia’s northernmost province, Roussillon, with its l’ollada, that in turn is related to the escudella of Catalonia. This, of course, leads us to the olla of Castile and Cervantes. The bean in all these early bean stews was fava bean or hyacinth bean, because the white bean which we use today with cassoulet, did not appear in Europe until after Columbus’s second voyage in 1493, and one of the first references in Languedoc to this bean is in Clermont-sur-Lauquet in 1565, by the name monges.
