Originally from Bigourdane and Béarnaise, garbure is a thick cabbage soup traditional to Gascon cuisine. This soup was the main dish of Gascon peasants. Accompanied by pieces of vegetables and meat, the recipe for garbure varied from one household to another, depending on the seasons and the resources of the vegetable garden. The soup, served as a starter or as a main course, is prepared by long cooking an assortment of vegetables (green cabbage, broad beans, potatoes, turnips, peas, beans, etc.) and meats, generally candied (duck, giblets of goose, pork knuckle, gizzards…). Very famous in its country of origin, the garbure is in the spotlight every first weekend of September in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, on the occasion of the Garburade, a competition during which around thirty teams compete to make the best garbure.
A typical culinary specialty of the Basque Country and more specifically of Soule, Basque chicken is a cooked dish made from chicken and tomatoes. Originally composed only of vegetables and bread, Basque chicken is now a dish rich in flavor for which there are a wide variety of recipes. Commonly, the recipe contains pieces of chicken sautéed then simmered in a casserole with a mixture of ripe tomatoes, red peppers and green peppers. To spice up the dish, we use Espelette pepper, garlic, onion, thyme and bay leaf.
Delicious at any time of the day, the landaise tourtière is a typical sweetness of the country to taste urgently. And beware of anyone who might be tempted to put the Landaise tourtière in the same basket with the Gascon pastis and the crisp. Despite a quasi-similarity in the recipe, these are three cousin desserts, but different for purists. This dessert is characterized by its extremely thin, folded and crumpled sweet dough, sprinkled regularly during cooking with an Armagnac-based sauce. There are several variants filled with apples or prunes.
