Always looking for cultural inspiration, French club hosted its 2021 “Ratatouille” cooking competition. Participants cooked the native dish of south France and sent in photos of their creation. 

Ratatouille, a vegetable stew originally from Nice France, was made popular across the world by Disney’s 2007 animated movie starring a mouse with a chef’s intuition. The recipe has consisted of tomatoes, peppers, aubergines (eggplants), and courgettes (zucchini) fried and simmered into a stew. Although the Pixar movie was named for the famed dish, the dish prepared and served in the movie was not the traditional ratatouille, a fact many have not realized. Instead, it was a course by the name confit byaldi. Though both have the same ingredients, they have been cooked and plated much differently. 

To have competed in this competition, contestants must have submitted four pictures. A picture of the cooking process, a close up of the whole final dish in the cooking pot or dish, a picture of the chef with a single serving of the dish and a close up of the single serving. The competitors had to submit these pictures in the French Club Schoology group or have emailed them to Monsieur Kallas by April 28th to qualify. All of the submissions were viewed during the meeting on Thursday, April 29th. The grand winner was Junior Kevin Pinkleman and he received a prize for his cooking accomplishment.