Julia Child: Coast to Coast Ratatouille

Summer is here. We are officially thirteen days into the season—Fourth of July. A temperature spike caused me to spend most of my three-day weekend sprawled out on the floor. Yes, summer is here! So what better way to celebrate than with a piece harkening back to Christmas?

You see last December Dad & Co. gave me Julia Child’s two-volume Mastering the Art of French Cooking along with the “Julie & Julia” DVD—fancy, indeed. This themed gift was the impressive brainchild of my ten-year-old (now eleven) sister. Maybe I don’t give her enough credit, but I’m not sure I was that clever at her age. I’m not sure I’m that clever now, almost twenty years later. It did shed new light though, to learn she herself has the famed Julia Child bug. Of all the things at the Smithsonian, it was the installation of Child’s kitchen that lured her away from the group. Lucky gal that she is, my sister received a matching cookbook-and-DVD care packet of her own on Christmas morning.

Since then, cross-country projects from Mastering the Art of French Cooking have ensued. My sister, our dad, and I take turns selecting recipes to make together from our respective kitchens. We sometimes miss our self-imposed deadlines—currently three months late on a lamb dish—but it is a fun migration through Child’s classic how-to.

Mastering the art of French cooking... and fashion.

Prepped and sauteed veggies.

For our first feat, my sister selected ratatouille. The main entries in Mastering the Art of French Cooking cross-reference others, making it as much a lesson plan as it is a recipe guide. The ratatouille entry sends readers to a tutorial on seeding tomatoes. I typically like cooking with tomato innards, especially where you might otherwise add a splash of oil or water. Too much tomato is a concept I do not know. However, when the recipe’s first step is to set chopped vegetables aside with salt (to pull out their natural waters a la Biology 101 osmosis experiments), even I will seed a tomato. The remaining pulp still renders plenty of juice for basting.

Poblano, zucchini, tomato, chayote, tomatillo, onion.

In addition to the book’s planned lessons, we had some self-made ones of our own. A loud “pop” greeted my dad and sister as they photographed their final product. It seems they used an oven-only dish on the stovetop. Oops! With the heat of their camera flash (or so the physics play out in my antiquated version) the pottery was pushed to its limits and cracked. The lesson of the day? Know the abilities of your clay cookery—unless, of course, you’re looking for an excuse to replace it with something new. Ruined cookware aside, they served the salvaged ratatouille with grilled filet mignon and had a big hit at the dinner table.

I served my ratatouille with wild rice and gave it a regional twist by trading out the eggplant and bell pepper for chayote, poblano, and tomatillo. Mmm-mm-good.