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["""Mme.", "Escrieu, sturdy mother of four strapping sons, lived with her family, two pigs, a dozen rabbits, a cow, three bird dogs, a yardful of chickens and guinea fowl, and a loftful of plump pigeons, in one of the farmhouses near my cottage in the Languedoc.", "Madame, a massively built matriarch, told me she made a cassoulet every two weeks in the winter months for her family's Sunday luncheon - never for the evening dinner, as at least six hrs were needed to digest it.", "More often would have been too much even for their gargantuan appetites.", "Her method began with the preparation of her own confit d'oie made from goose or possibly duck fattened for foie gras, but from that the precious liver had been removed and potted.", "The down from the birds had already been sterilized in the oven and used to restuff the matrimonial featherbed.", "I watched her construct her mighty masterpiece.", """The cassoulet, the archetypical peasant meal, is a controversial dish.", "Food writers, culinary scholars, and restaurant chefs have been plucking and worrying at it for years.", "The cassoulet, quite simply, is the creature of its maker: a balance of habit, necessity, availability, and as with all the best peasant cooking, the special genius of the cook.", "The cassoulet is unusual in which most of its ingredients are home prepared pantry items that demonstrate the cook's abilities in depth.", "The perfect cassoulet can only spring from the perfect larder.", "Even the cook's good night's sleep on her well-stuffed goose-feather bed can make all the difference.", """Toulouse, where the subject has entered the more rarified air of", "*gastronomie*, insists on the addition of a length of fresh Toulouse sausage and leg of mutton to the stew.", "Carcassonne adds both mutton and partriges - and brooks no deviation.", "Others add in what they judge to be their essentials.", "I put my money on Mme.", "Escrieu.""
