This interesting term, caçola, is Occitan or òc, the indigenous language of the region in the SW of France still called the Languedoc, or more appropriately “Lengadòc”, meaning tongue of òc = the language of Occitania. Occitan is really living Latin – òc meaning ‘yes’, based on ‘hoc’ (this), just as ‘sì’ in Italian is based on ‘sic’ (thus). Julius Caesar himself mentioned that Occitan speakers could teach the Romans a thing or two about the proper use of Latin. The famous mediaeval troubadours waxed sweetly in Occitan, which was then the elegant European court and courtship language. Remember Louis Armstrong’s lyrics for his ‘Let’s call the whole thing off’? … you say eether and I say eyether … you like tomato and I like tomahto …?

Way back when, Dante put that in a quaint Occitanian context “nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil” or “For some, it’s òc, for others sì, yet others say oïl (which became the modern ‘oui’ of the Royal French Court in the North) – and all of it means yes! And all of this lengthy digression into linguistics, simply to illustrate that both the òc language and our caçolet or cassoulet, have deep and cherished regional roots. We tend to regard France as a whole, well, Frenchy country. Yet the people of the Languedoc, with their Cathar history, their beloved Counts of Toulouse and their ancient kinship with Catalonia, have always regarded the North and the Bourbon fleur-de-lis with well-justified suspicion.

However, in our day and age, the humble cassoulet appears to have unified the South with the North, since it’s now celebrated even in Paris itself! Believe it or not, there is actually a Universal Cassoulet Academy – and they have a Facebook page! The cassoulet is one of the traditional French dishes of the “Repas Gastronomique des Français”, which was inscribed in the UNESCO list of the cultural and intangible heritage of humanity in 2011. Not so humble anymore!

In our kitchen, on this second day of the Great Cassoulet Challenge, the preparation proceed with the actual assembly of the dish.