But however it is made it is a flatulent food, even if it is cooked for a long time, although barley loses all its flatulence during the time that it is boiled. For anyone who pays attention and attends closely to the state of the body that follows from each food, a sensation arises throughout the whole body of stretching due to flatulent wind, especially when that person is unused to this sort of food or eats it without proper cooking.
The substance of beans is not solid and heavy, but spongy and light. They also possess a cleansing action like barley, for it can be clearly seen that their meal wipes dirt off the skin, something which slave-dealers and women have realised since they use bean meal for washing every day, just as other people use sodium carbonate, which is suitable for washing thoroughly too. They smear their face with it just like barley because it removes superficial blemishes which go by the name of burrs. By the same power, therefore, it slows nothing down in its passage through the body, which is a problem with viscous foods with thick juices that contain no purgative element, the examples we have mentioned being groats, spelt, finest wheat flour and starch.
The soup made from beans may be flatulent, but it becomes even more flatulent when the beans are used boiled whole. If they are roasted—for some people eat them like this in place of sweetmeats—they lose their flatulence, but become difficult to digest and slow to pass through the bowels, whilst for nourishment they distribute a thick juice to the body. Eaten when green, before they have been ripened and dried, they share the same attribute as all other fruits which we serve before their peak has been reached: namely that of supplying nourishment to the body that is moister and consequently more productive of waste, not only in the bowels, but throughout the whole body. So understandably such food is less nourishing and passes through the body faster.
A lot of people not only eat green beans when still raw, but also cook them with pork just like vegetables, although in the country they cook them with goat and lamb. Other people, realising that they are flatulent, mix them with onions when they are making a thick soup in a casserole. Some people even serve raw onions with this soup without cooking them together, because with all foods any tendency towards flatulence is mitigated through heating and diluting.
Peas
Peas are very much the same in composition as beans, but although they are eaten in the same way, they nonetheless differ in two respects: firstly, they are not as flatulent as beans; and secondly, they do not have a purgative power. They are therefore slower to pass through the stomach than beans.
—from On the Powers of Foods, A.D. 180,
translated from the Latin by Mark Grant
WAVERLEY ROOT ON CASSOULET
The outstanding dish of Languedoc is cassoulet, white beans cooked in a pot with various types of meat, which takes its name from the dish in which it is cooked, the cassole—an old-fashioned word no longer in current use. Originally it belonged to the family of farm-kitchen dishes, like pot-au-feu, which remain on the back of the stove indefinitely, serving as a sort of catch-all for anything edible that the cook may toss into the pot. Anatole France claimed in his Histoire Comique that the cassoulet he used to eat in a favorite establishment in Paris had been cooking for twenty years. It is to be doubted that any restaurant could be found today in which the stoves had not been allowed to cool off in that length of time. Modern fuels may be more convenient to handle than the farmer’s wood, but they are too expensive not to be turned off between meals.
This sort of a dish is obviously likely to vary with the … individual cook, or even with what the individual cook happens to have at hand (my own cook makes a first-rate cassoulet, but the ingredients are likely to be different every time). The one thing that does not change is the beans. Nevertheless, you can work up a hot argument among cassoulet-fanciers at any time about the ingredients of the real cassoulet. It is a subject as touchy as the correct composition of a mint julep in certain regions of the American south. With the caution that this is a most variable dish, even when made on the same spot by the same person, what seems to be majority opinion on the standard varieties of the dish, which then serve as points of departure for individual fantasy, is offered here:
There are three main types of cassoulet, those of Castelnaudary, Carcassonne, and Toulouse, of which the first seems to have been the original dish. It is therefore, in principle at least, the simplest, combining with the beans only fresh pork, ham, a bit of pork shoulder, sausage, and fresh pork cracklings. Carcassonne starts with this, and adds hunks of leg of mutton to the mixture (in season, there may also be partridge in this cassoulet). Toulouse also starts out with the Castelnaudary base, but adds to it not only mutton (in this case from less expensive cuts), but also bacon, Toulouse sausage, and preserved goose. The last ingredient may sometimes be replaced by preserved duck, or there may even be samples of both.
This would seem to make everything plain—Castelnaudary, only pork; Carcassonne, distinguished by mutton; Toulouse, distinguished by goose. However, an authority I have just consulted, which lays down these distinctions very sternly, then goes on to give two recipes for cassoulet de Castelnaudary; one of them contains mutton and the other contains goose. The conclusion that must be drawn is that cassoulet is what you find it.
The only invariable rule that can be stated about cassoulet, with whatever name it may be ticketed on the menu, seems to be that it is a dish of white beans, preferably those of Pamiers or Cazères, cooked in a pot with some form of pork and sausage. After that it is a case of fielder’s choice. Other points various forms of cassoulet are likely to have in common are: the use of goose fat in the cooking; seasoning that includes assorted herbs, an onion with cloves stuck into it, and garlic; and enough liquid to give it plenty of thick juice, sometimes provided by meat bouillon. The approved method is first to cook meat and beans together—they are likely to enter the process at different times, depending on their relative cooking speeds—and to finish the process by putting the whole thing into a pot, coating the surface with bread crumbs, which gives it a crunchy golden crust, and finishing the cooking very slowly, preferably in a baker’s oven. There is a tradition that the crust should be broken and stirred into the whole steaming mass again seven times during the cooking.
—from The Food of France, 1958
JOSÉ MARIA BUSCA ISUSI ON THE SMOOTHNESS OF TOLOSA BEANS
José Maria Busca Isusi, the author of numerous books and cookbooks and director of the food history magazine Cofradia Vasca de Gastronomia, Basque Gastronomic Society, was the leading Basque food writer and commentator from the 1950s until his death in the 1980s. This was a considerable accomplishment in a society that prides itself on its food commentary. Basque food writing, in the tradition of the Baron von Rumohr, is about documenting and preserving traditions.
Busca Isusi was not the first to reflect on the importance of earthenware in making beans, though he may have investigated it with more thoroughness than anyone else. It has long been argued that the secret of the Boston baked bean was the earthenware Boston bean pot, though Fannie Farmer completely dismissed this and said beans could be made well in a metal cooking pot. Neither Basques nor Bostonians believe this.
—M.K.
In the gastronomic firmament of Guipúzcoa, the stars are many and bright and the beans of Tolosa are generally considered of the first magnitude. Our subject, the beans of Tolosa, particularly those grown in the soil of this town, must be bought in the Tolosa market. Tolosa is a carrefour, an intersection, an extension between Goyerri and Beterri, and it is logically supposed that in its markets you can also find local products.
The bean of Tolosa is a novelty in Guipúzcoan gastronomy, like wine from America. Before Columbus we only ate broad beans. The red bean made such an impression on Guipúzcoans that even today they are sometimes called indiollar, or Indian chicken. The Guipúzcoan Order of Jesuits had a major business importing turkeys from America.
The fame of Tolosa beans goes beyond our borders, and the Guipúzc
oan characteristic of the dish is smoothness. The unctuousness of the sauce produced is unique, and this is not a subjective but a completely objective observation—a thick and chocolate-colored sauce that no other bean produces.
Analyzing in detail the Guipúzcoan way of making Tolosan red beans, we must take into account that the earthen casseroles are better than metal ones, and that metal pots are not adequate for cooking Tolosa beans. Tolosa beans reject this kind of pot.
It is well known that the calcareous [lime] content of water is of critical importance to the cooking of all types of dried legumes, as well as some green vegetables. Today the chemical action that takes place in this kind of water has been completely explained, and fortunately the waters of Guipúzcoa, in general, are not hard. The best water in which to cook beans is rain water, and for many years now homemakers in rural areas have recognized this.
For a long time I have been trying to understand what it is about our earthen casseroles that makes them cook better than metal, and only recently I had the good fortune to encounter the technical explanation in a magnificent book. The cooking of beans causes four important occurrences:
1. It dissolves films.
2. It decomposes demi-cellulose.
3. It alters cellulose.
4. It coagulates starch.
During the cooking the protopectins are partially transformed into pectins and acids, which are the products that cause thickening during cooking, and it seems Tolosa beans have an abundance of this. To understand the beans, this change in pectins is of decisive importance. The change in pectins produces something called pectasa, which rapidly activates at a temperature between 50 and 60 degrees centigrade. At 90 degrees it is destroyed, but logically it has already been activated.
This action of the pectasa at low temperatures explains why you have to soak beans for several hours. Actually, the beans are lightly cooking while they are soaking. Then, once put on the fire, the action of the pectasa continues until the temperature reaches 90 degrees. This is why the slower the heating, the greater the effect of the pectasa.
So, the casserole transmits the heat much more slowly than the old-fashioned cast-iron casseroles, which in turn are slower than the enamaled metal, and this is slower than the aluminum ones. So it is because of the way the heat travels through the casserole that beans cooked in earthenware will be smoother than those cooked in newer pots.
This also explains why Navarra housewives asustar the beans, which is adding cold water during the cooking so that the beans are never in boiling water. It is certain disaster to put beans in boiling water, because after having been soaked and then going immediately to boiling water leaves little time for the pectasa to act.
However, there are other things that make Tolosa beans uniquely smooth. Two American products in our fields join as brothers magnificently: corn and red beans. Beans and corn live together in a romantic embrace that protects them from the sun’s rays. Furthermore, our climate is ideal for some American plants that don’t like dry weather, such as tobacco, chili peppers, tomatoes, and beans. The beans of Tolosa, which do not like sun, are always grown in gentle shade.
Another factor commonly known in chemistry is that lime phosphate deteriorates the quality of dried beans. Normally, Tolosa beans are grown only with cow manure, and never with superphosphates. We understand that this is critical for the quality of the beans.
Let’s finish up with another factor. Beans from siliceous earth, which has a low pH, are of a much higher quality than those grown in calcareous soil, which has a high pH. A good place to observe this is the Urola Valley. Up until Aspeitia, the left side is siliceous. The beans that grow on the side of Beloqui, which is calcareous, do not have the quality of those of Elosua, on the Irimo Mountain where the soil is siliceous.
Having written all this I have committed the sin of being pedantic, but I believe I can be forgiven for good intentions. We have to search for technical understandings into the farthest corners of our cuisine, and this article is an attempt, more or less successful, to offer the opinions of those who study Basque cooking in general, and especially Guipúzcoan cuisine.
—from Cofradia Vasca de Gastronomia, no. 6, San Sebastián, 1972,
translated from the Spanish by Mark Kurlansky
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Fish That Didn’t Get Away
ALICE B. TOKLAS MURDERS A CARP
Cook-books have always intrigued and seduced me. When I was still a dilettante in the kitchen they held my attention, even the dull ones, from cover to cover, the way crime and murder stories did Gertrude Stein.
When we first began reading Dashiell Hammett, Gertrude Stein remarked that it was his modern note to have disposed of his victims before the story commenced. Goodness knows how many were required to follow as the result of the first crime. And so it is in the kitchen. Murder and sudden death seem as unnatural there as they should be anywhere else. They can’t, they can never become acceptable facts. Food is far too pleasant to combine with horror. All the same, facts, even distasteful facts, must be accepted and we shall see how, before any story of cooking begins, crime is inevitable. That is why cooking is not an entirely agreeable pastime. There is too much that must happen in advance of the actual cooking. This doesn’t of course apply to food that emerges stainless from deep freeze. But the marketing and cooking I know are French and it was in France, where freezing units are unknown, that in due course I graduated at the stove.
In earlier days, memories of which are scattered among my chapters, if indulgent friends on this or that Sunday evening or party occasion said that the cooking I produced wasn’t bad, it neither beguiled nor flattered me into liking or wanting to do it. The only way to learn to cook is to cook, and for me, as for so many others, it suddenly and unexpectedly became a disagreeable necessity to have to do it when war came and Occupation followed. It was in those conditions of rationing and shortage that I learned not only to cook seriously but to buy food in a restricted market and not to take too much time in doing it, since there were so many more important and more amusing things to do. It was at this time, then, that murder in the kitchen began.
The first victim was a lively carp brought to the kitchen in a covered basket from which nothing could escape. The fish man who sold me the carp said he had no time to kill, scale or clean it, nor would he tell me with which of these horrible necessities one began. It wasn’t difficult to know which was the most repellent. So quickly to the murder and have it over with. On the docks of Puget Sound I had seen fishermen grasp the tail of a huge salmon and lifting it high bring it down on the dock with enough force to kill it. Obviously I was not a fisherman nor was the kitchen table a dock. Should I not dispatch my first victim with a blow on the head from a heavy mallet? After an appraising glance at the lively fish it was evident he would escape attempts aimed at his head. A heavy sharp knife came to my mind as the classic, the perfect choice, so grasping, with my left hand well covered with a dishcloth, for the teeth might be sharp, the lower jaw of the carp, and the knife in my right, I carefully, deliberately found the base of its vertebral column and plunged the knife in. I let go my grasp and looked to see what had happened. Horror of horrors. The carp was dead, killed, assassinated, murdered in the first, second and third degree. Limp, I fell into a chair, with my hands still unwashed reached for a cigarette, lighted it, and waited for the police to come and take me into custody. After a second cigarette my courage returned and I went to prepare poor Mr Carp for the table. I scraped off the scales, cut off the fins, cut open the underside and emptied out a great deal of what I did not care to look at, thoroughly washed and dried the fish and put it aside while I prepared
Carp Stuffed with Chestnuts
For a 3-lb. carp, chop a medium-sized onion and cook it gently in 3 tablespoons butter. Add a 2-inch slice of bread cut into small cubes which have previously been soaked in dry, white wine and squeezed dry, 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, 2 chopped shallots, 1 clove of pressed garlic, 1 te
aspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper, ¼ teaspoon powdered mace, the same of laurel (bay) and of thyme and 12 boiled and peeled chestnuts. Mix well, allow to cool, add 1 raw egg, stuff the cavity and head of the fish, carefully snare with skewers, tie the head so that nothing will escape in cooking. Put aside for at least a couple of hours. Put 2 cups dry white wine into an earthenware dish, place the fish in the dish, salt to taste. Cook in the oven for 20 minutes at 375°. Baste, and cover the fish with a thick coating of very fine cracker crumbs, dot with 3 tablespoons melted butter and cook for 20 minutes more. Serve very hot accompanied by noodles. Serves 4. The head of a carp is enormous. Many continentals consider it the most delectable morsel.
—from The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book, 1954
TAILLEVENT’S OYSTER STEW
Scald oysters and wash them well, parboil them a little and fry them in oil together with chopped onions; take toast, pea puree or the water in which the oysters were scalded, or any other hot, boiled water, and a generous proportion of wine and verjuice, and strain this; then add in ground cinnamon, ginger, cloves, grains of paradise, and saffron for colour, infused in vinegar, and onions fried in oil, and boil all of this together. It should be stiff and yellowish, and salted to taste. Some people do not boil the oysters in this.
—from Le Viandier, c. 1390,
translated from the French by Terence Scully
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