Garbure (; ) is a savoury French dish, described either as a soup or a stew. It is a one-pot dish of vegetables – mainly root vegetables – with one or more of several meats, slowly cooked in an earthenware dish in an oven. The cooking liquid is sometimes served as soup before the meat and vegetables are served as a main course. The food writer Curnonsky named as one of the four great regional dishes of France.
History and etymology There is some argument about the origin of the name of the dish. Some sources say that the name derives from the French word – sprig – referring to the many aromatic herbs that perfume the dish.Root, p. 422 Some who maintain this theory point out that the Béarnais word means a mixture of fresh green vegetables like those which are put in the soup, but the food writer Waverley Root comments that this word may just as well have come from as the other way around. He advances the theory that the origin of the name may be the Spanish – stew. A third theory is that the name derives from the use of the term describing sheaves of grain depicted on a heraldic shield or coat of arms.Dallas, p. 215 The dates the word to the eighteenth century and says it is borrowed from the Gascon , meaning a hearty Béarnaise soup, made with rye bread, vegetables, bacon and goose or duck confit. "Garbure", Dictionnaire de l'académie Française. Retrieved 18 April 2026
Description Elizabeth David says of , "This soup, which, like the , is rather more of a stew than a soup, is traditional in the Landes, the Béarn, and the Pyrenees".David, pp. 43–44 Root calls "one of those soups which is more than a soup, providing a full meal". According to Root the ingredients should be so crowded in the cooking pot that a ladle pushed into it will stand straight up, prevented by the contents of the from sliding to the side. The gastronome Curnonsky hailed as one of the four great regional dishes of France, along with , and .
David adds that the recipe has many variations, and the choice of meat for the stew varies widely. Antonin Carême, in his 1847 book (The Art of French Cooking in the 19th century) gives a recipe for , using boned veal shank, chicken, carrots, onions, turnip, leeks and celery.Carême, pp. 171–172 In later recipes the principal meat in the stew is variously given as bacon, beef,Koffmann, p. 27 duck confit,Lawson, Nigella. "Sud Quest", The Spectator, 16 February 1991, p. 41 goose,Claustre, pp. 22–23 goose confit, ham, pork heel,Larousse, p. 210 salt pork, Toulouse sausage and veal.Hughes-Gilbey, p. 18 The vegetables, mainly root, include some or all of cabbage, carrots, celery, haricot or white beans, fava beans, green beans, green or red pepper, leeks, Lima beans, onions, peas, potato, pumpkin and turnip.Claustre, pp. 22–23; David, pp. 43–44; Hughes-Gilbey, p. 18; Koffmann, pp. 26–27; Larousse, p. 148; Worral-Thompson, p. 28 Some recipes add pieces of French bread.
The dish is traditionally cooked in an earthenware casserole, or as it is called in the Béarn (a fat pot, narrowing towards the top, with a straight handle). The cooking liquor is sometimes served as a soup before the meat and vegetables are served as the main course.Koffmann, pp. 26–27
There are many regional variations of the , including , (with cabbage), (with lettuce), , and .Claustre, pp. 22–23; David, pp. 43–44; Hughes-Gilbey, p. 18; Koffmann, pp. 26–27; and Larousse, p. 148
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See also List of bread dishes List of French soups and stews List of soups List of stews Potée