Ratatouille | Recipe, Meaning, Dish, & Ingredients (2024)

FAQs

What is the meaning of ratatouille dish? ›

(ˌrætəˈtuːi, -ˈtwi, French ʀataˈtuːjᵊ) noun. a vegetable stew of Provence, typically consisting of eggplant, zucchini, onions, green peppers, tomatoes, and garlic, served hot or cold.

Think of the vegetables that grow well in your yard, ready to be picked together in late summer and early fall — that's ratatouille. It's a stew of zucchini, peppers, tomatoes and eggplant, with herbs and spices and some onions and garlic usually thrown in for good measure.

Ratatouille is a classic French dish that captures the essence of Mediterranean flavors in a delightful vegetable medley. This recipe is surprisingly simple yet packed with incredible flavor, proving how a few basic ingredients can create something truly exceptional.

At its core, “Ratatouille” entertains one foundational question: Should we as a people choose ignorance or empathy? In the film, rats are stigmatized to only be troublemakers, and humans to only be killers. But, Remy the rat makes a different choice.

Ratatouille is a vegetable stew (a single dish, not an entire meal) originating from Provence in France. It usually contains eggplant, tomato, onion, and a variety of other herbs and vegetables. It's a popular folk dish in the region, so there are a lot of variant recipes.

Use the freshest produce.

Don't take those tomatoes that look like you'd better use them up. The success of ratatouille depends on the freshness of your vegetables. Take the time to choose fresh vegetables and your vegetable ratatouille will taste vibrant and delicious!

Whatever the case, ratatouille is the signature dish of Nice, the major city of Provence. It is a good example of “peasant cooking,” food characteristic of a rural countryside that has been elevated to the status of fine dining, as presented in the eponymous Pixar film of 2007.

Ratatouille is packed with dietary fiber, potassium, vitamins A, C and K, folate and much more. With so many vegetables included, you're bound to meet the recommended daily amount of veggies your body needs.

This dish features eggplant, zucchini, bell peppers, and tomatoes, all richly seasoned with olive oil, garlic, and fresh herbs. It takes some time to prepare, so making a large batch over the weekend is ideal. This way, you'll have a tasty and colorful base ready for meals throughout the week.

Modern ratatouille uses tomatoes as a foundation for sautéed garlic, onion, zucchini (courgette), aubergine (eggplant), bell pepper, marjoram, fennel and basil. Instead of basil, bay leaf and thyme, or a mix of green herbs like herbes de Provence can be used.

What is the meal at the end of ratatouille? ›

Fun fact: the signature dish Rémy serves at the end of Ratatouille isn't technically a ratatouille; it's a tian, which is an artful arrangement of sliced summer vegetables baked over a tomato and pepper sauce.

How to Serve Ratatouille. Ratatouille can be the main dish with a side of crusty bread or a salad accompanying a meal, but it's also good served over polenta, pasta, mashed potatoes, quinoa, and rice. Use it as a filling for omelets and tarts or as a side for grilled or roasted meats.

The history of the recipe for Ratatouille is said to be from France originally, though the ingredients and style of preparation has some historians wondering if it actually originated from the Basque region of Spain. The modern recipe for Ratatouille originated in the Nice and Provencal regions of France.

ˌrä-ˌtä-, -ˈtü-ē : a seasoned stew made of eggplant, tomatoes, green peppers, squash, and sometimes meat.

Ratatouille sees food and cooking as art, and it sees art as a process that requires courage above all else. The film continually speaks to the courage it takes to thrive instead of just skating by and surviving.

Set mostly in Paris, the plot follows a young rat Remy (Oswalt) who dreams of becoming a chef at Auguste Gusteau's (Garrett) restaurant and tries to achieve his goal by forming an unlikely alliance with the restaurant's garbage boy Alfredo Linguini (Romano).

The teeming summer gardens of Mediterranean France are the inspiration for and source of ratatouille, a dish whose name is taken from two related words: ratouiller, meaning to agitate or stir a liquid, and tatouiller, meaning to beat (as in the drumbeat called the tattoo) or to shake.

The Story

What makes Ratatouille so special is that its story covers so many bases without feeling overstuffed: Remy's storyline deals with identity and finding one's passion, Linguini has to learn to grow a backbone, and the commercialization of good food even gets its nose into the picture.