I am not too sure about some of the pronouncements of Curnonsky, but I have to admit that garbure in the right hands is most assuredly a great dish. Basically, it is a soup—a relatively simple one at that—made up of salt pork, cabbage, and beans. But, of course, like many “simple” peasant dishes, garbures are not as easy as they seem. It is in the embellishments, the variations, that the really great garbures come about.

Garbure is the very symbol of Béarnais cookery, but it is eaten widely in Gascony, the Landes, and the Pays Basque, too. It's usually served as the evening meal—one of those soups that is a meal in itself. Preferably cooked in an earthenware toupin, garbure has all kinds of variations, depending on local ingredients. The best garbures are made in spring with the second shoots of young cabbages (broutos). In the late fall, grilled chestnuts are added; and in the Landes during the summer, cooks add roasted red pepper strips. In winter, the bean of choice is the Tarbais bean, which doesn't fall apart when reheated but also manages to maintain a melt-in-your-mouth texture. Some cooks will add a fricassee of onions and vegetables fried in goose fat during the last hour or so of cooking; others will add Swiss chard to make the soup more succulent, and still others will serve it as a gratin with layers of bread and cheese. On the average weekday night, a cook will often add a hachis or a sahit (a mixture of aged pork fatback minced with garlic and herbs) and perhaps a spoonful of goose fat. But a truly luxurious Sunday garbure requires a trébuc, a final embellishment of confit.

Here is a little story about confit and garbure that sums up, in an amusing way, the mystique of the “secret” in Southwest French cookery. A gastronomic reporter asked a famous local cook just precisely when she added the leg of goose confit to her deservedly famous garbure. The cook replied that first she took the preserved goose leg in her hand and stirred it around in the soup. She kept stirring and stirring until all the surface fat melted off and flavored the soup. Then she stirred some more until she could actually feel the confit imparting its wonderful flavor to the liquid. “I keep stirring,” she said, “and stirring … and stirring … and then finally I let it drop in.”

“Yes, yes,” said the impatient gastronomic reporter, “but explain to me precisely when.”

There was a long silence, and then the cook whispered her “secret”: “When my hand gets too hot to keep holding it,” she said.

For optimum flavor, make the soup 3 to 4 days in advance.