Provençal Vegetable Stew

Fortunately, ratatouille is easier to make than to pronounce, but then again it’s not that easy to make well. In its usual form, ratatouille is a vegetable stew made by gently cooking together onions, tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini in olive oil. Most restaurant versions I’ve encountered are too oily, and they prickle my mouth from the eggplant and taste too strongly of bell peppers. More carefully prepared versions are made by sautéing each of the ingredients separately, so that each better keeps its identity, and combining them at the last; but of course such a concoction isn’t really a stew, but a sauté made to look like a stew. Some recipes specify that each ingredient be cut into tiny dice, for a thick paste that can be dolloped on toasts, while others say it’s essential that the vegetables be cut into relatively large slices or chunks so that you can taste and see them individually.