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More Than The Sum of Their Parts

Ratatouille

Appears in

By Rowley Leigh

Published 2018

  • About

You might think ratatouille a simple proposition. Rata was army slang for food and touiller is to stir*. And there you have it: you are by a campfire, probably in North Africa, surrounded by chaps in kepis, one of them lazily stirring a big pot of vegetables. Unfortunately, life and ratatouille are never that simple.

*Sir, As an admirer of Rowley Leigh, I hesitate to disagree with him, but I think he is wrong about the derivation of ratatouille (‘All in this together’, Life & Arts, 17 August 2013). According to my Petit Robert, the word ratatouille (1778) is an amalgam of old French tatouiller and ratouiller, both forms of touiller, to stir. The army slang rata (1829), or any old stew, is a subsequent abbreviation of ratatouille. Fay Garey, Céret, France

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