In pursuit of the perfect cassoulet

Here's an excellent article about Paula Wolfert's recently re-released cookbook The Cooking of Southwest France, or, as the author calls it, Extreme Cooking.

I've long known that Wolfert is considered the expert in authentic Mediterranean cooking. Most people know her best for her work on the cooking of provincial France, but her definition of Mediterranean extends to all countries that surround it, so you'll find recipes from Crete and Morocco, from Cypress and Turkey, as well as the expected Spain, France, and Italy.

The author explains that "not everyone is temperamentally suited to cutting up wild rabbits and draining their blood for use in sauces, or surfing the Internet and forking over big dough for fresh Boletus edulis (porcini or cèpes). Extreme cooking, like whitewater kayaking and out-of-bounds snowboarding, is only for a small segment of the population."

Still, there are people who love nothing better than rising to a suitable challenge, and Wolfert has her devotees. Before the re-release of this book, foodies hoarded their copies greedily: "Food people would lend their copies of James Beard or Julia Child, but they kept this book in locked drawers or hidden under pillows. One friend even kept hers with the unpublished manuscript of her first novel — in the freezer in case the house burned down."

The author describes the trials required to complete some of Wolfert's recipes:

"Prunes that have soaked in Armagnac for six months, minimum. The blood of a freshly killed hare. Nine pounds of fresh fava beans, husked and peeled. A 6-inch-thick bed of pine needles. One dish alone — a cassoulet — required trips to two gourmet shops, three butchers, a farmers market and a produce wholesaler. It put 72.5 miles on my car and cost $91.13."

Since the book was first printed, a lot has changed in America. You can now buy, and assume people know what you mean by, truffles, duck confit, fresh fava beans, pyrneean cheeses, and much more. Gone are the days when your only chance at actually cooking these recipes was if "your best friend spent her summers on a farm in Dordogne shacked up with a customs official."

I don't think that even I am quite extreme enough for Paula Wolfert, but I'm awfully glad she's out there. And if I need something to transport me away from yet another rainy Portland night, I just might pick up this book.