French cuisine has in its culinary arsenal many famous dishes, while some of them are particularly sophisticated, have a complex set of ingredients, while others surprise with their simplicity and unique taste. The history of the ratatouille dish is famous for its simplicity and popularity. This happened because there are several versions of his appearance in French cuisine.
The history of ratatouille began in the distant past.
According to one version, the dish began its history in the distant past and was the favorite food of simple peasants who cooked stew with various vegetables, seasoning necessarily Provencal herbs. Mandatory ingredients were basil, rosemary, fennel, caraway seeds. But over time, the history of ratatouille passed on to the level of nobles and nobles. And the name came from the two French words “Rata” in the translation “Food” and “Touiller” in the translation “Shuffle”. But to say that the idea of creating this stew was exclusively in France is impossible. After all, such dishes from vegetables could be found in other countries. For example, in Italy it was a caponata, in Hungary the well-known lecho, in Spain - a pisto, in Turkey - an imam of a bayaldy. With all of the above facts, many experts prove that the origin of this stew has not been historically confirmed, and there is no word about it in the old manuscripts about cooking, and all the hyped hype is nothing but PR.
But there is another opinion regarding the history of the origin of the ratatouille dish. According to this version, it appeared in France in the seventies of the last century, and its author was the chef Gerard. He dreamed of finding original recipes for the menu of his restaurant. For the sake of this, the cook went on a trip to different countries, while he visited both famous restaurants and ordinary small cafes. And in Turkey and Italy Gerar tried variations of vegetable stew. In his restaurant, the chef created his own variation of the dish and named the confession Bayaldi, which became the star of the menu, and gave the restaurant Gerar three whole Michelin stars.
Nowadays, there are many variations of this famous stew, and you cannot name one classic recipe, since there are three different cooking technologies and each is considered correct. According to one of them, vegetables are diced and stewed with the addition of olive oil and Provence herbs. On the other, everything is fried separately, and combined together immediately before serving. In the third option, the ingredients are cut into circles and laid out in a spiral and baked.
Despite the fact that there are a lot of recipes for preparing a ratatouille, they are united by common requirements for technology and ingredients.
The first is that everything should be fresh: no frozen foods!
Secondly, cutting into a cube (large) or a thin circle.
A classic set of products: zucchini, tomato, bell pepper, onion, garlic and Provencal herbs.
Served only fresh, so as not to lose its taste, color and smell.