Ratatouille

Lou and I saw Ratatouille on Saturday night. It's a well done (all food puns intended) tale of a foodie rat who yearns to cook. The story follows the rat, Remy, from his humble roots in the French countryside, where his family eats nothing but garbage, all the way to his stealth takeover of the kitchen of one of the most revered chefs in Paris. The climax of the movie is when Remy comes out (he had been hiding behind the chef's son, a bumbling dishwasher) and takes full control of the kitchen in order to prepare a French Laundry-like ratatouille for the story's bad guy, who is, of course, a food critic. Remy's ratatouille wins the critic over by recreating the tastes and flavors of his mother's ratatouille and by emotionally transporting him back to the warm and comforting embrace of his mother. The ratatouille scene is brilliant--both in a triumphal and a comedic sense--and I loved the message that good food not only delights and stimulates the senses, but also the enlivens both the heart and the mind. I also liked the message that food brings people (and rats) together, and makes relationships possible. That's what appeals to me about cooking and eating (this is not a celebration of baking as much as it is of cooking). Anyway, we laughed out loud longer than anyone else in the theater at the moment of Remy's triumph. It was a deliciously delightful movie made for foodies and non-foodies alike.

By the way, Frank Bruni wrote this essay in the NYT Week In Review yesterday, and I want to echo his view of how much Ratatouille seems to be a movie that could not have been made as little as a few years ago. Thanks to Julia Child (the real godmother of American foodies), food bloggers, celebrity chefs and everyone else who has preached the gospel of good cooking and eating, not to mention those who have prepared and sold gourmet cuisine, Americans now seek out and appreciate good food more than ever before. Thus, they--we--are able to fall for a story about a rat who, like them, loves food and yearns for more of it.

Go see it, and tell me what you think.

Oh, and guess what we made for dinner last night?

UPDATE: The NYT published Thomas Keller's recipe for Confit Byaldi, otherwise known as ratatouille.

FURTHER UPDATE: Here, Bruni ponders the portrayal of the restaurant critic in Ratatouille.