Potée Auvergnate

The potée auvergnate is the mountain's one-pot meal — a massive assembly of salted and fresh pork, cabbage, root vegetables, and dried beans simmered for hours in a cast-iron marmite, producing both a rich broth (served first as soup over bread) and a platter of meats and vegetables (served as the main course). Every region of France has its potée, but the Auvergne version is distinguished by its scale, its emphasis on pork in multiple forms, and the inclusion of the saucisse sèche d'Auvergne (dry-cured mountain sausage) alongside fresh meats. The assembly: soak 200g dried lingot beans or mogettes overnight. Place a petit salé (salted pork belly, soaked 12 hours), a fresh pork blade (palette), and a piece of lard fumé (smoked fatback) in a large marmite with cold water. Bring to a gentle simmer, skim carefully for 30 minutes. Add the soaked beans, a whole green cabbage (quartered, blanched 5 minutes to reduce bitterness), carrots, turnips, leeks, onion stuck with cloves, and bouquet garni. Simmer for 2 hours. Add potatoes and a saucisse sèche (whole, pricked) for the final 45 minutes. The two-course service is ritual: first, the broth is ladled over thick slices of pain de campagne in each bowl — the trempe, the soaked bread that is the soul of all Auvergnat soups. Then the meats are sliced, the sausage cut into rounds, the vegetables arranged on a platter, and all is served with Dijon mustard, cornichons, and coarse salt. The potée is Sunday lunch from October through April — the cold-weather sustenance of a mountain people.

• Potée Lorraine (eastern version)
• Potée Bourguignonne (Burgundy version)
• German Eintopf (one-pot meat and vegetable)
• Portuguese cozido (mixed meat and vegetable boil)