"These, on the other hand," Christian said, "are pure fat."
I looked around the bar. How was it possible that middle-aged guys ingesting cholesterol and drinking quinquina by the liter could have half the heart attack risk as, one study suggested, men in carrot-chomping, exer-cycling Stanford, Calif.?
Toulouse prides itself on its food (its specialty is cassoulet), and visitors can stock up on fresh produce at the Victor Hugo Market.
(Robert V. Camuto)
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"When in Toulouse . . ." I reasoned and popped some fat morsels.
In the Belly of the Feast
The following day began at Toulouse's large covered food market, sometimes called "Toulouse's stomach." Victor Hugo Market is surely the most sumptuous place housed on the ground floor of a parking garage.
On the streets surrounding the market we passed antiques shops, chic boutiques and food shops that display local specialties in windows like jewels: glass jars of cassoulet, slabs of chocolate, candied violets, bottles of Armagnac and large pyramids of goat cheese that after nearly a decade of aging resembled 18th-century masonry stones.
On the sidewalk outside the market were the vegetable sellers -- in October hawking cèpes, wild boletus mushrooms as large as soccer balls. Inside were rows of permanent stands, from bars serving up coffee and wine to bakeries, fish sellers, cheese vendors and butchers. There were skinned rabbits for the picking, whole pigs, wild boar, young deer, sausages coiled up like garden hoses and, naturally, every kind of terrine, mousse, pâté and filet of the web-footed species.
Lunch was upstairs on the second floor of the market at one of several restaurants crammed into a no-frills, fluorescent-lit space with plastic tables and chairs and paper table coverings. All the restaurants here were packed with Friday-afternoon lunch-goers. Our group consisted of three families and we waited an hour for a table that would accommodate us all.
It was worth the wait.
When my cassoulet arrived, the white beans were baked golden brown and crusty on top. Toulouse pork sausage and a leg of tender duck confit were folded inside. "There is no fat in cassoulet," Christian said with a grin. Then he held up his index finger and delivered the caveat: "When it is prepared correctly."
Making Toulouse's signature dish properly, he explained, starts with good beans -- preferably from the central Pyrenees town of Tarbes -- and involves skimming the fat off the dish numerous times. Of course, when you're working with beans cooked in fat, duck and sausage, Christian said, "it's hard to get all the fat out." He pronounced my cassoulet well-prepared. It would be hard to imagine a better rendition, even at a Michelin-starred restaurant, where we would have undoubtedly paid a premium (much more than the $15 cassoulet here) for pink table linens, hovering waiters and real chairs.
