Ratatouille

Eggplant

So the question is, what do I do with all those tomatoes?  We can a lot, but one of my favorite summer dishes is ratatouille.  We have everything needed in the garden: sweet onions, zucchini, eggplant, and of course, tomatoes.  It was the first dish Christophe ever made me, and I swear to this day, no one makes it better.  When he told me he was making ratatouille that first time, I didn’t understand at all; it’s that whole accent thing.  He repeated the word over and over again, and then I finally had a light bulb moment and got it. (However, understand Jewelia Rowbear for Julia Roberts took a good hour.)

And, I have to be honest, before that moment, I never ate ratatouille before.  Growing up, we had more zucchini than we knew what to do with – zucchini bread, zucchini and tomato casserole, zucchini chocolate chip cookies, and zucchini chocolate cake – but we never ate eggplant.  I think if I was handed it as a child I wouldn’t have known what to do with it.  I grew up in a typical Mid-Western family; we had green beans, corn, and of course, zucchini.  In the winter, we ate potatoes.  Its funny how all that has evolved; I’m in a Mediterranean environment.  It’s super-hot, we eat late, and eggplant (2 varieties) is an everyday summer food.  Ratatouille anywhere else just wouldn’t be the same.  Yes, part of it is the vegetables are fresh from the garden, but the other part of it is location; the vegetables scream “Mediterranean” and not “Mid-West”.  I do miss a good ear of sweet corn freshly husked, boiled, and buttered, but I have an appreciation for new local comfort foods, that like that ear of corn, reflect the place and the people who live there. 

Pleasures of the Season: Toulouges Sweet Onions

“Pleasures of the Season” is a series of posts which appear from time to time.  They focus on something special that occurs only seasonally, often fleeting, and something we anticipate.  The posts are sometimes food related, sometimes not, but highlight moments of what I’ve learned about living with the seasons since moving to Southern France.

Not cultivated to be stored long, these sweet onions look like Spanish red onions but without the bite.  They are often served raw and, so mild always prepared with tear-free eyes.  Named for the city of their origins in Southern France, Toulouge onions add a complexity to dishes that ordinary yellow onions don’t.  The one hundred plus planted in the garden are quickly disappearing; we pick and cook as needed.  Now their growing season is over, the remaining are left to dry so they might make it to November, but I’m having my doubts. They are crucial to a successful ratatouille, a Mediterranean dish consisting of four ingredients in equal parts - sweet onions, tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini.  Christophe proudly whips it up by the pot full, but it disappears as quickly as it is made.