Ratatouille (with sausage)

*Or: “French farmers knock another one out of the park”

Like many people I know, I never had any idea what ratatouille was, other than a nifty word, until that movie by the same name came out. If you haven’t seen it, it’s pretty adorable.

Remy the rat chef in Ratatouille

Incidentally, this image is also a decent approximation of how I look in a kitchen.

In this movie they show an interesting preparation method in which you slice all the components into thin rounds and layer the individual slices to compose a beautifully presented dish. We’re not doing that. For a more traditional method, Julia Child (along with several other beacons of culinary wisdom I consulted) instructs that components should be sautéed separately before layering and doing a final cook in a covered dish. We’re not doing that either. We’re going stovetop skillet, and starting with a recipe from Emeril Lagasse, though there will certainly be modifications. The most glaring of which is probably the meat I’m adding (Inspired by Jeff. He is the only person I know who actually makes this dish on a regular basis. I don’t know what kind of meat he puts in, but we’ll be using Italian sausage. We actually spoke on the phone last night and compared recipes after realizing we had both just made it!)

There is nothing particularly daunting about this dish. Really, it is just stewed vegetables. Apparently it was originally a French farmer’s dish of summer vegetables. Which reminds me of the line at the climax of the rat movie when Remy chooses ratatouille as the dish he will present to the food critic. Collette, another chef voiced by Janeane Garofalo, exclaims with dismay, “But zees ees a peasant’s deesh!” Remy insists however, ultimately giving the critic a transcendent experience and winning the movie.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with humble origins. Coq au vin, arguably one of the most renowned poultry dishes there is, also originated as a peasant dish. So did boeuf bourguignon. Notice that both of those, haute cuisine though they are at this point, really come down to cooking the hell out of a tough piece of meat. But the French understood that using wine for the long cook elevated simple ingredients and produced heavenly results (I’m looking at you, Great Britain. Water is not an effective flavoring agent.) We seem to have strayed a bit from the original topic, but dammit, 18th century French farmers deserve a paragraph or two of recognition. They knew their stuff.