A delectable memoir revealing how a simple journalistic assignment sparked a culinary obsession and transcended into a quest for identity. After getting a taste of cassoulet in 2008 while on assignment writing about the cuisine of Southwest France, Bigar, a nice Jewish girl, couldn’t stop thinking about the quintessential historic meat and bean stew. Unable to shake this obsession, she travels again from her home in New York to the Occitanie region of Southern France where cassoulet is said to have originated, to study with the man who would become her culinary guru, Eric Garcia, founder of L’Académie Universelle du Cassoulet. There, she immerses herself in all things cassoulet. From her first spoonful, she is transported back to her dramatic childhood in Geneva, Switzerland, and finds herself journeying through an unexpected rabbit hole of memories leading her miles away from her upper-crust upbringing. Not only does she discover the deeper meanings of her ancestral French cuisine, but she is ultimately transformed by having to face her unsettling, complex family history.

Nonfiction
Cassoulet Confessions: Food, France and the Stew That Saved My Soul
- From the Publisher
September 1, 2021
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