Cholent and cassoulet

Looking at the similarities between cholent and cassoulet, I think cholent gave birth to cassoulet as cooks and housewives in medieval France (or Aquitaine or Languedoc) took cholent from its specifically Jewish roots and absorbed it into the regional gastronomic culture of southwestern France.

Before Columbus brought beans from the Americas back to Europe, our common bean - Phaseolus vulgaris - was found only in the Americas. While chickpeas and lentils were available, a "bean" in pre-Columban Europe typically meant a fava bean. Both cholent and cassoulet are old dishes, and each was originally made with fava beans, the first important point of a shared past. Cholent is enriched by beef bones and meat, while cassoulet relies on a variety of meats, ranging from lamb or sausage to preserved duck and goose. Beef is the only meat not usually associated with cassoulet, and I wonder if that’s deliberate? Did non-Jews look at cholent and substitute other meats to make a point that they weren’t preparing a Jewish dish? In times of anti-Semitism or explicit persecution of Jews, adding a piece of confited pork would make a visible statement about one's dietary restrictions. Cholent was also made on occasion with lamb, an important meat throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East.

Cholent used to be made in a pot and sealed with a flour and water paste to keep in moisture. That’s identical to the medieval French daubiere, a slow-cooking clay pot with a raised lip that allows a flour-water paste to seal the pot completely. Cholent was always started on Friday and cooked in a low oven or placed at the edge of the fire and covered with hot ashes through the night and into Saturday, allowing Jews to eat a hot meal on the Sabbath without having to cook or light a fire.

I made cholent last week, piecing together fragments of recipes old and new. I started with fava beans, the small dark ones – minor types – known sometimes as horse beans or tick beans. After soaking them I added a meaty beef bone, onions, garlic, potatoes, and salt and pepper. I also added a small rack of lamb ribs and before the stew went into the oven I carefully slipped a few eggs into the mixture. I poured water and turkey broth over the beans and meat, and put the lidded, cast iron pot into a 200 degree oven.

When I pulled the cholent from the oven late Saturday afternoon, the long-simmered stew smelled beautiful in its hues of onion, brown, beef and lamb. I pulled out the eggs, whose white shells had turned tan during the long night of cooking, and cracked one open. A caramel-colored white steamed pleasantly and the now-hard egg left stains of taste on my now-tingling tongue. A bit of lamb fat floated on the surface and the plumped beans nestled with beef and translucent onions.

Cholent shares the same architecture but lacks the complexity of taste we find in a traditional cassoulet; as I prepared it, I thought it was a simpler dish. But it’s not hard to see how Jewish cooks laid the foundation for what we now think of as a quintessential French dish, and I’m going to keep exploring the connection between these two living cultural treasures of Jewish and French cookery.

Northwoods Bouillabaisse

I’ve been making my own northwoods bouillabaisse for a few years now, savoring the fish that Minnesota has in abundance, extracting from these fish, almost all of which are the ones most anglers throw back as too small, a rich and flavorful stew that, while not bouillabaisse, is as rich and satisfying as a trip to Marseilles to indulge in the real thing. That’s an advantage, I guess, of having children for whom the sheer excitement of catching a fish surpasses the need for a mountable trophy – we shamelessly keep the small sunnies, crappies, rock bass and smallmouth bass that look like muskie bait, turning them into the stock that is the foundation for my northwoods bouillabaisse.



Like gardening, part of the pleasure of a good fish stew is catching the fish yourself, and the pleasure is heightened when they’re caught on Burntside Lake in northern Minnesota, a ten thousand acre lake that is cold, clear and deep. We fish off a little point and stand with the water lapping our feet and loons swimming by; fir and pine trees line the shore, islands dot the lake and fade into a grey distance that evokes elemental Milton Avery and Chinese ink drawings.


When the fish are biting we put a nightcrawler on a hook and let it fly, a ¼ oz sinker dragging it to the bottom where rocks abound. If we avoid the numerous snags it’s not long before there’s a gentle tug, that thrilling feeling of an imminent strike. And sometimes a good sized bass will inhale the hook and a jolting yank on the line immediately awakens the senses for the beginning of a chance to land a big one.

My stew is a simple one, and I change it as new herbs or ingredients seem good to add. I start by scaling and gutting all the fish. If any of the fish are large enough I also cut out the fillets and put them aside. Usually I have only a few meaty fillets, but when I fry these in butter and bacon fat they add a lot of richness and flavor to the stew.



Cover the fish in water and bring to a boil, skimming off all the scum that surfaces. Usually when I’m up north I have limited ingredients, so I usually add only an onion, carrot, and maybe a bay leaf to the stock. Cook for thirty minutes to an hour and strain. If any obvious chunks of fish are visible and easy to get at, I usually use a fork to pry them from rib cages and other bony areas. In a wide sauté pan, I like the 3 qt size because of the wide surface area for evaporation, I add garlic and onion to olive oil, butter, bacon fat or a combination of those delicious cooking fats. For this stew I almost always sauté the onions over a high flame, usually because I’m hungry and don’t want to wait for lunch. Next, I add a tomato, usually just one to begin with, and I crush it and let it be absorbed into the onions. Keeping the pan really hot I slowly add a few more tomatoes by ones and twos, breaking them apart with my wooden spoon (is there any kitchen tool as wonderful as a wooden spoon? It is primitive and prehistoric and essential) and watching them sizzle, adding another when the now-emerging sauce is reduced to almost no liquid. While I’m sautéing the onions I add basil, thyme, parsley and a few pinches of sea salt, and then I add anise seed and saffron, keeping some semblance of a traditional bouillabaisse. I let this get really thick and fragrant and then I start adding ladlefuls of fish stock, one at a time, keeping the flame hot and adding the next ladleful only when the previous one is almost completely evaporated. The longer I’m willing to cook it the richer it is – on the first night it’s always the thinnest, but as I save some for each subsequent night the resulting stock, when chilled, becomes thick like rubber.



Because I always eat lunch with my wife, I add stock and continue to reduce it until there’s enough for two bowls. As I near the end of the reduction, I sauté the fish fillets in butter over high heat, browning and crisping them with a bit of salt and pepper. A little leftover penne is another good addition at this time, and so are chunks of potato. Pour into a big bowl, place the fried fillets on top, and enjoy.