It's actually ratatouille. I've written about the word and the dish before. The word seems to be derived from two terms that merged — ratatiner, which means "to shrivel up, to get wrinkled", and touiller, which means "to stir, to mix". The Grand Robert unabridged French dictionary says that ratatouille, in current, everyday language, means: Plat d'origine niçoise, mélange de courgettes, de tomates, d'aubergines, etc. cuites ensemble à l'huile. It's pronounced [rah-tah-TOO-yuh] with the stress on TOO and a very slight final yuh sound.
Right now, we have the tomatoes, the eggplant (aubergines), the zucchini (courgettes), and the bell peppers (poivrons) — that's for sure. We have onions, garlic, and olive oil, and we have herbs (thyme, oregano, etc.). Walt used all that to make a big batch of ratatouille yesterday, some for eating this weekend and some for storing in the freezer for later.
I remember the first time I ever heard of ratatouille, and tasted it. I was in Marseille. It was the spring of 1970, when I was a 21-year-old student in nearby Aix-en-Provence. I don't know why I went to Marseille, and I think I was by myself — again, I don't know why. Maybe I was meeting somebody who was coming in by train, and then taking the visitor back to Aix. Anyway, I had lunch in a sidewalk café, and feeling adventurous, I ordered ratatouille, which I had never heard of before. It was delicious, and it seemed very exotic compared to the North Carolina cooking I had grown up on.
There are many styles of ratatouille. Some call for cooking the onions, garlic, bell peppers, eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes separately in olive oil and then layering them in a big pot to let them finish getting ratatinés but not doing much touillage (see Julia Child...). Other styles go to the opposite extreme of stirring the vegetables vigorously as they cook down and shrivel up, and then crushing the who mixture with a potato masher to make the ratatouille into a more or less homogeneous mass. Below is a recipe we use (Monique Maine's), for ingredients and proportions as much as method.
Walt took the middle road, doing a good bit of touillage but not cooking the ratatouille so long that all the vegetables started to melt into the cooking liquid. He said he likes to have some chunks of vegetable left when the ratatouille finishes cooking. You can always cook the chunky mixture down to make it smoother and more homogeneous later if you decide you want that, but you can't put the vegetables back together again once they've disintegrated. In fact, some versions of ratatouille are not stirred at all — they are vegetables baked in a dish in the oven.
Did I mention that I've never been able to find mention of ratatouille in the exhaustive Larousse Gastronomique food encyclopedia? Ratatouille is not your classic Parisian gastronomical delicacy. It's more rustic. It's from Nice, and Nice wasn't even part of France until about 150 years ago. Maybe ratatouille is in some other edition of the Larousse Gastronomique, but I can't find it in the one I have. Mine's in French, not English, and was published in 1967.
My understanding, at least what I've heard from some of my French food history friends, is that the first mention of ratatouille was in a magazine in 1931. The dish is not too dissimilar from what previously was referred to as a sauté.
ReplyDeleteEvidently, the term ratatouille used to be used to describe any rough-and-ready ragout. Then along came ratatouille Nice-style, so the word now describes that particular ragout.
DeleteAccording to CNRTL, the word ratatouille appears in French literature in Balzac's Début de Vie, 1842; in Zola's l'Assomoir, 1877; and Gide's Si le grain ne meurt, 1924.
DeleteI am sure people from Provence didn't wait until Nice became French, in 1860, to cook that delicious stew with vegetables traditional to that part of France. What did they call that dish?
I should have said earliest recipe in the above. (See below for further info.)
DeleteI am suprised (and pleased 'cos I don't like 'em) that olives do not feature in the ratty.
ReplyDeleteBlack olives are optional.
DeleteAccording to CNRTL (Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et lexicales), ratatouille is a cross or a mix, if you want, of two regional verbs — ratouiller and tatouiller, coming from touiller, with basically the same meaning, which is stir well.
ReplyDeleteThe Grand Robert says the verb ratatiner is also in the mix. Qui sait? The main thing is that it is good to eat.
DeleteDid you eat ratatouille when you were growing up in Paris? Or did it arrive later from Nice and La Provence?
DeleteYes, we did. But it was just called ratatouille, no niçoise involved! What makes it niçoise? Black olives? Anchovies? Or something else like basil, which grows on every window sill in Provence, and is unknown in Northern France?
DeleteBonjour cousin,
Delete"touiller" saute aux yeux car, en créole des îles , cela veut dire "tuer" .
Killing all those veggies :-)
Bonjour Cousine,
DeleteOui, touiller veut dire bien remuer pour bien tout mélanger. Par contrecoup, ça "tue" les légumes ou autres.
ReplyDeleteI love ratatouille ! I put black olives in mine and sometimes a mix of Greek olives .. a little surprise in your mouth as you eat..
I make a huge batch and freeze portions of it .. it makes a fabulous pasta sauce .. just the way it is or add more tomato.
I started eating Ratatouille in NYC when I tried it in a local restaurant, didn't love it when I had it in Paris and mostly love it best when I make it ... one of the great things about it is how easy it is. A lazy cooks dish.
NFA.... it is far from a lazy cooks dish... unless you are referring to using, like us, as a pasta sauce. It is a wonderful way of preserving all those summer veg and eating them through winter... not tried the olives idea before!
DeleteIt's not a lazy cook's dish considering that this cook grew the tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, and peppers that went into it! :)
DeleteI made more research about the meaning of niçoise or à la niçoise and found out what I suspected. Something niçoise contains black olives and/or anchovies. Plus, of course basil. So what we're talking about here is a misnomer. It is not ratatouille niçoise since there is neither black olives, anchovies nor basil in the recipe. It should be called ratatouille provençale.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Larousse Gastronomique, the two things that make something à la niçoise are tomatoes and garlic. No mention of anchovies (they'd be weird in a ratatouille) or basil (could be good but thyme would be more authentic).
DeleteI'm afraid I don't agree with the Larousse gastronomique on what constitute niçoise. In salade niçoise, the two mandatory main ingredients, in addition to tomatoes, garlic and hard boiled eggs, are anchovies and black olives de Nice which is the reason why it is called that way.
DeleteObviously, you don't put anchovies in ratatouille, but to be called niçoise it must have black olives in it (even if they're imported from Greece!), they are not optional.
I'm sure you are right, CHM. Larousse be damned.
DeleteI love these discussions about the origins of words and recipes :)
ReplyDeleteI have bottled enough to see us well through winter :-))) Hope all is well with you both, Diane
ReplyDeleteI had my first taste of ratatouille at Palavas les Flots in 1961- I'd never tasted eggplant then or garlic- a great taste memory. My french family invited me to their beach house and the mom cooked it on a small two burner stove.
ReplyDeleteI also remember having spaghetti bolognese in Bologna that summer on spinach noodles. My taste buds were educated in a good way!
These are amazing memories, aren't they? We have been lucky in our lives.
ReplyDeleteWe were so lucky to have traveled when we were young. Being young makes for intense lasting memories and fine day dreams!
DeleteThe earliest specific recipe I have found is from Montagné and Salles' gigantic (about 10,000 recipes) "Le Grand Livre de la Cuisine" from 1929. In the "plats régionaux, entrées mixes" section is a recipe (p. 982) for "ratatouille (ou sauté a la niçoise)" that contains oil, onions, sweet peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, garlic, and parsley. No olives or anchovies.
ReplyDeletePopular books of that period by authors such as Ali-Bab, St. Ange, Escoffier, Dubois, and Gouffé yield no recipe for ratatouille.
Barrère's "Argot and Slang: A New French and English Dictionary of the Cant Words, Quaint Expressions, Slang Terms and Flash Phrases" (1889) defines "ratatouille" as "to thrash".
"Cassel's Household Guide" from 1869? describes ratatouille as: "This popular French mode of making a savory mess out of remnants of cold meat, especially of cold bouillon, or beed which has passed through the pot-au-feu." At the time of serving, an optional sauce made from curry powder was added.
We have Montagné & Salles doorstop... along with another, similar one. A fascinating read with many recipes that are now illegal amongst its pages. That recipe for "rat" is extremely simple.... four lines! And I notice that they add the parsely and garlic at the last minute... always put the garlic in with the onions when we make it... must try their method!
DeleteAnd what does the word "Prosper" in front of their names mean, please?
DeleteIs it a term of recognition for a master chef?
Isn't Prosper just Montagné's first name? Yes, it is -- just checked Wikipédia. I don't know the name Salles.
DeleteThanks for that info, Peter. One of my cookbooks has a recipe for aubergine-courgette-tomato ratatouille Norman-style, with cream and cheese in it. I was interested to learn that CHM's family cooked and ate Provençale ratatouille in what I assume was the first half of the 20th century.
ReplyDeleteI also have the book La Cuisinière Provençale by J.-B. Reboul. The blurb on the cover says it has been in publication since 1897. My copy is the 27th edition, fourth printing (2001). I don’t know when any specific recipe first appeared in the book.
DeleteHowever, among the recipes is one for « La Ratatouille Niçoise » that lists the ingredients as aubergines, courgettes, poivrons verts et rouges, huile, oignons, ail, and tomates. It includes this instruction: « Laissez cuire à feu doux en ajoutant de l’huile et quelques olives noires (facultatives). » It also says to season the ratatouille with salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg (une pointe de noix muscade râpée). The recipe doesn’t mention anchovies.
I spent an hour or so going through the index of the Reboul book this morning to see how many à la Niçoise recipes are in there. There only two others besides the ratatouille. One is a fish soup, Soupe de poutine, which contains no olives or tomato (!) but has carrots (!) and saffron. The other is Stockfich [sic] à la Niçoise [sic], which has black olives, tomatoes, basil, garlic, potatoes, and onion (entre autres). Stockfich à la Provençale, on the other hand, has no olives or potatoes but leeks and lemon with tomatoes, etc.
DeleteAnother book I have, La Cuisine Provençale d'Aujourd'hui, gives Ratatouille without adding the word niçoise, but also gives Haricots Verts Niçoise, with tomato, garlic, and petit salé. On the internet, I see Tourte de Blettes à la Niçoise with no tomato or olives. Or anchovies.
We are doing a "green" rat this year.... Green Zebra tomatoes, green peppers, courgettes and white aubergines.... the taste is perfect "rat"... it is just a surprise on the eyes! We did a mainly yellow one last year... Lemon Boy toms, yellow Snackbite peppers, pale purple aubergine and Yellow Crookneck squash.
ReplyDeletePauline often adds 5cm lengths of French beans to her versions of "rat"... it gives a nice crunch! We also bottle our winter "rats" with beans such as Nun's Belly Button, Black Canterbury or Borlotti.... those are good with a couple of sossij and a baked spud.
Real "Winter Warmers"!
I like the idea of the green ratatouille. We didn't grow any green tomatoes this year.
Delete