The Right Bean

You know when you eat something and it’s really perfect? That’s how I felt the first time I tried cassoulet—a classic dish of southwestern France—at a lovely neighborhood restaurant in Brooklyn called Patois. It was a cold-weather special, and I sat with my husband, Frank, on the restaurant’s back patio, enclosed in a tent and warmed by a wood stove. The cassoulet was so delicious that as soon as we started eating it, Frank and I hardly said a word. “We have to make this at home,” Frank finally said as he set down his fork. I wasn’t sure. It seemed complicated. “That would be a lot of work,” I said, sensing that we’d already experienced the perfected dish. But even though it does take time and patience to prepare cassoulet, I discovered that the dish isn’t as complicated as I first thought. I think of it as the best pork and beans you’ve ever tasted—rich and garlicky and herbaceous, with a crust that crackles when you dig your fork in. It’s not health food—that’s for sure. It’s country food. Soul food, even. French-style.

We waited more than a year until we felt ready to make cassoulet—for a New Year’s Eve dinner party. We read and cooked and tasted and experimented. Frank is a professor, so he dives into research. He acquainted himself with many different cassoulet recipes. He bought a sausage-making attachment for our KitchenAid mixer, and learned how to make garlic sausage. We became well-versed in a few ancient—and deeply contentious—cassoulet debates: Goose or no goose? Bread-crumb topping or just a crusty top layer of beans? (We decided to forgo the goose and go with the bread crumbs.)

“If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do it right!” Frank said.

I agreed. Perfection was the goal, after all. We’d make it all from scratch. And my main mission? To find the perfect bean.

For absolute authenticity, you had to use Tarbais beans, white beans from the town of Tarbes, in Gascony. “No other bean will do,” a Frenchman I chatted with in a coffee shop proclaimed.

I went to a gourmet shop near home and scanned the bean display. Great Northerns. Garbanzos. Navy beans. Kidney beans. Hmm. “Excuse me?” I asked a clerk. “Where are the Tarbais beans?” He looked at me blankly. I hopped on the subway and headed into Manhattan. Four shops and two miles of wintry walking later, my quest turned up not a single Tarbais. I got back on the subway. What would we do if we couldn’t find the perfect bean?