I made cassoulet this week. The creation of cassoulet, the regional peasant dish of southwestern France is not something to be undertaken lightly. Most recipes recommend a two-day composition period. It is said that Anatole France’s favorite version tasted as if it had been cooking for twenty years—which I’m not so sure is a good thing. Cassoulet includes five kinds of meat, white beans, and a sauce rich in tomatoes, onion, garlic, and herbs. A duck and a pork shoulder are roasted; lamb, salt pork, and sausage are browned. (This is not a dish for vegetarians.) Then the whole thing is baked with a breadcrumb topping. The cook makes periodic visits to the oven to break the crust and to add additional stock as needed–and to sip a nice red. The breaking and re-breaking of the crust enables more diners to enjoy what some say is the crisp, best part of the dish. I made cassoulet once before about twenty years ago and felt like I didn’t need to do it again. But, when you have a whole duck taking up valuable freezer space and you’ve been reading Pampille’s Table by Martha Daudet in a new Bison Books edition from the University of Nebraska Press’s At Table Series, what can you do?

Pampille’s Table, a gathering of more than 200 recipes from the author’s friends, relatives, and gourmands, and originally published in 1919, is still a highly regarded classic. Shirley King’s translation and update is valuable to cooks and readers interested in the development of French cuisine and it’s regional distinctions. More important and more fun, is Pampille’s very personal literary style. She is completely unpretentious; she always prefers the simple to the complex. She champions the use of fresh, local, in-season ingredients and dispenses strong opinions, most of which you will agree with. Here are some samples. "Before divulging these secrets, I should add that a good recipe does not guarantee a perfect dish. There is a certain something called la tour de main–a special touch–that contributes to at least half the success of any dish. In general, fat cooks are endowed with this special touch more than thin cooks." In discussing the four most important soups of France, Papilla pronounces: "You have to be at least 30 years old to enjoy Pot-au-Feu. Before reaching this prophetic age, you cannot appreciate good things." (Willa Cather asserted a similar sentiment about the magical age of 30.) Perhaps only when one is well past thirty does this judgment not rankle. On the correct coarse salt to serve with Boiled Beef: "They should obtain this salt from the salt-marsh districts such as Piriac, at Mme Béchet’s grocery shop. . . . They say that this salt is like no other, and that each grain contains a tiny piece of the landscape." Reading Pampille’s Table is such a pleasure because these sentiments are included not only in recipe head and endnotes, but even more delightfully, within the recipes themselves. If you never cook a thing from this book, reading it will enchant you.

The cassoulet fed a small army of appreciative friends. None was saved for an Anatole France testing twenty years hence. After making and eating cassoulet, you’ll want to eat nothing more than a plain green salad with austere vinaigrette, maybe a slice or two of good bread and some fresh fruit for at least a week. I’m not finished with Pampille however. The Onion Tart and the Chocolate Savoy Cake look promising.