Beans

Was cassoulet originally made with dried broad beans? Possibly. I once saw a jar labelled Févoulet in Narbonne’s poshest grocer, which was just that, and haricot beans, when they first came to France, were often called fèves or fèves de haricot, so the picture is linguistically confusing. In any case, broad beans, which came from Egypt, and black-eyed beans (Vigna) from Africa were staple foods in France long before the beans we now know as white haricots were introduced.