Until Sunday, the Cassoulet Festival in full swing in Castelnaudary (Aude), the “world capital” of the emblematic dish. Despite the heat, it is planned to serve up to 25,000 plates of the famous and substantial recipe on large tables. “The one that is good, simmered with love”, mischievously underlines Michel Koehl, the Grand Chamberlain of the Confrérie. Do not understand that of the Toulouse neighbor who commits the sacrilege of adding tomato or breadcrumbs. In Castelnaudary, you don’t make your “real” cassoulet with Tarbais beans. We use the white beans ingots from Lauragaisconsidered “less floury”, and whose very thin skin is more pleasant in the mouth.
Grown in the surrounding area, dried in the wind and in the sun on the field – unlike their Argentinian, Canadian or Egyptian rivals – they are the gold of the Chaurian version of the dish, the authenticity that great chefs seek in their casseroles. They even achieved recognition in 2020 by obtaining a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) for around fifteen Aude farms.
Water quotas halved
But in the middle of the harvest period, and even if the gargantuan quantities engulfed at the moment in Castelnaudary do not let anyone suspect it, the ingot bean is also becoming rarer. Due to drought. “We made trade-offs,” explains Marc Cauhopé, who chose with his son, who now runs the family farm, to cultivate only three hectares of bullion beans instead of the usual ten. Their decision dates back to the January-February period, when the Ganguise and Montbel lakes (in Ariège), the main irrigation reservoirs in the Lauragais, reached historically low levels. “The authorities told us that our watering quotas were going to be halved overall,” says the young retiree.
“To manage a resource that is becoming scarce”, he bet on seed corn, with a sure yield, to the detriment of a bean “sometimes capricious and fragile”, very water-intensive after flowering and very exposed in the fields during of its big week of drying. In the end, July was rather rainy and a blazing sun arrives right for the harvest, but we should have been conspicuous. According to Marc Cauhopé, some of his IGP colleagues did not grow beans at all. And there are only about sixty hectares of beans to be harvested this year, against sometimes 200. A hell of a drop when “one hectare represents on average two tons” of ingots.
“It’s not the end of the beans but there will be a shortage”
“It’s not the end of the beans, but, yes, there will be a shortage”, recognizes David Marty, the president of the Syndicate of bean producers of Castelnaudary. Especially since, even if it keeps remarkably well in cold storage, stocks were already low after a “very poor 2022 harvest”. Big bad luck when the IGP produced its effect and boosted demand. But the manager wants to reassure loyal restaurateurs. “We will do everything we can to ensure that no one is left out,” he said. For him, the consolidation of the sector “will necessarily go through the securing of water resources” but also perhaps, through scientific research, with the development of “more efficient and more resistant” Lauragaise seeds.
Hydrology, price, yield… The grand chamberlain, between two trestles, evacuates the subject which could disturb the digestion of the revelers. “We will talk about it the rest of the year. For now we are celebrating! »