Back on our virtual Tour de France (the only way most U.S. citizens can currently visit), we will make a brief stop in the south-central region formerly known as the Midi-Pyrénées.
The geographical, cultural and historical composition of this region is odd, and we have better things to do than to sort it out here. For fans of medieval history, the dominant political entity was the county of Toulouse, whose powerful rulers extended their influence beyond this region. The counts were part of the family of our favorite queen, Aliénor d’Aquitaine, and were major players in the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars.
The principal city of the counts and of the region is Toulouse, the fourth largest city in France and a hub for tech, culture, medicine and education. One of my regrets from our last trip is that we bypassed the pink city on our drive from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. No vacation is ever long enough to do everything one might want. A stopover in Toulouse would have necessitated removing another destination, and Toulouse was among many possibilities that did not make the cut. Since adding #toulouse to my Instagram feed, I’m sure not to bypass it again.
Rue Peyrolières in Toulouse. My kind of place. (Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)Technically, our only stop in the Midi-Pyrénées two years ago was a short walk-around the center of Condom. We refrained from snapping selfies with the town sign, and we didn’t linger as it was a drizzly day and we were eager to get to the sunshine of the Mediterranean. Our only photos of Condom are the cathedral exterior and mail delivery via bike.
Although not technically in the Midi-Pyrénées, the medieval walled city of Carcassonne seems to me most aligned with this region. Its claim to fame is its role as a Cathar center, and its rulers generally allied with the counts of Toulouse. The well-preserved castle and fortifications are one of France’s top tourist attractions and definitely worth a stopover. We had a great view of and access to the city from our AirBnB. While some of it is a bit kitschy, overall a visit to the cité is almost a magical time-travel adventure.
Now for the food. The most iconic dish of the region is the cassoulet, a hearty slow-baked casserole of beans and meat. Toulouse and Carcassonne are both famous for it, and of course we ordered it for dinner in Carcassonne.
When the time came for me to try it at home, I had difficulties. I followed, to the best of my ability, Paula Wolfert’s recipe for Cassoulet de Toulouse. The most essential ingredient — the large, white Tarbais beans — are one of those protected French agricultural products that normally you would need to import at great expense, but checking that box on my cassoulet ingredients list was surprisingly easy. I hesitate to tell you people about this source, because wait times for shipments have already stretched to weeks this year, with many products being sold out, but I’m good to my readers and my friends. The amazing heirloom bean purveyor, Rancho Gordo, grows the bean in California from French seed stock as “cassoulet bean.”
Getting all the meat ingredients during a pandemic proved too much for my patience. I gave up on the plethora of pork products and settled for a pork shoulder and some bacon. I wanted to be lazy and purchase duck legs confit, but I couldn’t find that and made my own with the sous-vide as recommended by Paula Wolfert. I also failed to procure the toulouse sausages which made me furious at myself because I have a deli right in my neighborhood (Raduno) that makes these rare beauties, but I remembered I hadn’t picked them up about 30 minutes after Raduno had closed for two days and the beans were already cooking, so I couldn’t delay. And finally, I burned some of the beans on the bottom. I’ll need to try this again. I can’t even add my photo because it was so ugly. Well, here’s the duck legs:
I’ll leave you with a book recommendation. Historical fiction and fantasy fans may enjoy Kate Mosse’s Languedoc trilogy set in and around Carcassonne. I’ve only read the first one, but it helped me imagine what life was like in the medieval cité and I was grateful I had read it before visiting.
Also, I discovered there’s a strategy board game called Carcassonne. Comment below if you’ve played it and can recommend.
Next: the Languedoc with sunshine, the sea, and wine wine wine.
