Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A vegetable stew, usually made with eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, and onions, seasoned with herbs and garlic.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A traditional French Provençal stewed vegetable dish consisting primarily of tomatoes, zucchini and eggplant, with other ingredients.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a vegetable stew; usually made with tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, peppers, onion, and seasonings

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from alteration of toillier, touiller, to stir, mix; see toil.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French ratatouille, from Occitan ratatolha (ratatouille is a dish originally from Nice, and is also found in Provence), French form from diminutive prefix tat- + touiller ("to stir"), from Latin tudiculare ("to grind, to mix").

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Examples

  • When the new foods that came from the Americas - peppers, summer squash and especially tomatoes - took hold in the region, a number of closely related dishes were born, including what we call ratatouille - and a man from La Mancha calls pisto, an Ikarian Greek calls soufiko and a Turk calls turlu.

    NYT > Home Page By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN 2010

  • The main principle of a good ratatouille is to judge when to add which vegetable so they are all cooked to perfection when the stew is done.

    Ratatouille! « Were rabbits 2007

  • Next I had a swordfish medallion with a crispy crust made of prawns and things, and some squid on the side and some unidentified vegetables, a bit like the ones you put in ratatouille.

    palace 2007

  • Next I had a swordfish medallion with a crispy crust made of prawns and things, and some squid on the side and some unidentified vegetables, a bit like the ones you put in ratatouille.

    snap 2007

  • Thanks for posting this…I have had and made the traditional ratatouille, which is great, but my 5 yr old daughter, after watching the movie several times, finally asked me to make it this way.

    ratatouille’s ratatouille | smitten kitchen 2007

  • Every august, when we are awash in tomatoes, zucchini, and eggplant, I get into what my family calls the ratatouille rut, but I love the stuff.

    ratatouille’s ratatouille | smitten kitchen 2007

  • They're a sort of ratatouille which is complex and wonderful in its own right.

    "Postchristianity" and the Future of Unitarian Universalism in North America Steve Caldwell 2008

  • Pixar Does It Again it's a true testament to pixar's talent that they could make something as potentially icky as a rat cooking and touching food in a classy french restaurant actually believable and charming. and that is one of the reasons that 'ratatouille' works as well as it does.

    Archive 2007-07-01 Darth Larry 2007

  • Email a copy of 'ratatouille's ratatouille' to a friend

    ratatouille’s ratatouille » E-Mail | smitten kitchen 2007

  • Pixar Does It Again it's a true testament to pixar's talent that they could make something as potentially icky as a rat cooking and touching food in a classy french restaurant actually believable and charming. and that is one of the reasons that 'ratatouille' works as well as it does.

    THE EMPIRE BLOGS BACK: Pixar Does It Again Darth Larry 2007

Comments

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  • I need to vent, just a little, and I suppose this is as good a place as any.

    Animation is not synonymous with "for children." On Saturday I tried to round up some friends to watch Ratatouille with me, and was turned down repeatedly by disdainful lines like "are you kidding, that's a CARTOON" and "I don't want to watch a stupid kids movie."

    Finally I wrangled up a couple open-minded folks and we headed to the theater. Ratatouille is not a kids movie, it is a work of art that's written intelligently for all ages, a true film that deals in the deeper themes of life. My friends who came along remarked at how much "heart" it has. It's not an "adult" movie, per se, but it hasn't been dumbed down for children. It's a serious cinematic work that just happens to be animated, and beautifully so.

    Long story short, I'm upset at people for jumping to conclusions. After The Iron Giant and The Incredibles, and now this, Brad Bird has risen to "favorite director" status in my mind. If you're looking for a good movie, however old you are, check out Ratatouille.

    July 9, 2007

  • U, I haven't seen Ratatouille yet, but it's definitely on my short list. I agree; animation isn't just for kids. In fact, sometimes I wonder whether a lot of very finely done animation is in some ways wasted on kids--the craft of it, I mean.

    And thanks for the review. ;-)

    July 9, 2007

  • How did you get your italics to work? I used them throughout my "review" and they were apparently filtered out. I assumed John just decided he didn't like them anymore. :-)

    July 9, 2007

  • uselessness, if you use < em> and < /em> tags (without the spaces after <) I think italics will still show up.

    July 10, 2007

  • u, I see that you did use <em> tags, but my little method to check if a comment has balanced tags is somehow thinking yours doesn't, even though I just checked it, and it does. So, it's not, you, it's me. Really. :-)

    I'll keep chipping away at these annoyances, my apologies for the slow piecemeal progress.

    July 10, 2007

  • It's cool, no biggie. Just a curiosity. For what it's worth, I tried substituting <i> tags and they didn't work either... then the OCD web standards geek in me came out and I had to promptly change them all back to <em>. ;-)

    July 10, 2007

  • Well, I don't know squat about this, but I've always used < i> tags and they've worked fine thus far. Should I be using < em> just to be safe?

    July 10, 2007

  • John, you are awesome. We bring up these little things only to trouble-shoot amongst ourselves, never to take you to task. :) (Not that we ever object to improvements--just to any guilt on your part.)

    July 10, 2007

  • Hear, hear, jennarenn!

    July 10, 2007

  • This was used in a question on 1 vs. 100:

    "Howard Stern is eating ratatouille with Baba Booey. What are they eating?

    A. A mixture of meats

    B. A variety of veggies

    C. A pastiche of pasta"

    The correct answer, of course, is B. But the contestant answered A. He's so sure, too...I feel bad for him. It's a commercial right now, but they're going to show him the answer when it comes back.

    EDIT: They showed it to him. I was right, it was painful to watch.

    August 30, 2009