I asked chef Martin Etchemaite, from the Basque country town of Larrau, to tell me the secret of his very famous bean soup. He confirmed that the thin-skinned, sweet-tasting, buttery textured Tarbais bean is the key. (As its French name—haricot de maïs— indicates, it is a climbing variety that grows up stalks of corn.) But that wasn’t all: “Duck fat is essential, too, because it adds depth, ” he told me, and then he went on to extol the Basque paprika, called piment
