It had to be stew

In Cassoulet Confessions, food writer SYLVIE BIGAR discovers the secrets of the French stew. Her odyssey leads her on a journey to a meeting of minds, and palates.

- SYLVIE BIGAR

Come for lunch, he'd said. At Domaine Balthazar, weeks after my initial call and 3782 miles from New York, lunch burst through the door with as much pomp as could be mustered by a group of meaty, middle-aged oompa-loompas ambling into the dining room dressed in scarlet robes with billowy sleeves, yellow ribbon tied at the neck.

This was not the simple Sunday lunch I thought I had been summoned to. Everything spoke of ritual, of tradition, of ceremony. The dresses, red with white trim, matched by soft, beret-style caps, reminded me of academics in graduation processions. Miniature versions of the cassole, the terracotta pot that provided the basis for the name cassoulet, hung on green ribbons around thick tan necks, like medals of honour. Men and women sang in a mysterious language as they marched out of the kitchen.

And this parade had a float. A centrepiece shaped like a stretcher and framed by two elongated poles made of raw wood held a platform fashioned from planks. From the side hung a red satin banner with gold fringes, emblazoned with the words Académie Universelle du Cassoulet. Resting on the platform, presented with a pride ordinarily reserved for an infant prince, was a pair of gargantuan cassoles too big for me to wrap with my biggest bear hug. Each end of the stretcher was gripped by a man in a robe. The procession streamed into the dining room.

The bouncy beat of their singing sounded like a folk song, or maybe some sort of anthem. I tried to make out the lyrics then, recognising none of the words, tried to place the language. French? No, I knew the singing was not in ma langue maternelle, my mother tongue. It was not in Italian, the other language I spoke, nor in English. I could usually distinguish Spanish, German, and bits and pieces of other languages, but this was unlike anything I had ever heard.