Catholic Recipe: Ratatouille
One of the traditions about St. Martha is that she sailed to Provence, France after Christ died. Ratatouille is a recipe associated with Provence. This is a stew of tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and zucchini, with endless variations. The distinctive flavor comes from the slow cooking. Serve as a vegetable or a sauce for pasta. This is a perfect dish for the summer vegetables!
Since Jesus told Martha to not worry about things, but to listen to His word, we should keep our meals simple on this day, and spend time outside of the kitchen to meditate on the Gospel.
DIRECTIONS
Take equal amounts of eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers. Cut the eggplant and the zucchini into round slices as thick as a silver dollar. Peel the tomatoes and cut them into sections. Cut the peppers into ribbons, first removing the seeds, of course. Mix all together in an earthenware casserole. Finely chopped onions may be added but this is optional. But garlic is essential and two cloves of it should be used, whole (to be fished out later), chopped, or mashed. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and cover generously with olive oil. Cover the casserole and simmer gently for about three hours, taking the lid off during the last hour so that the vegetable liquid boils down to a syrup. Serve cold.
Recipe Source: Feast Day Cookbook by Katherine Burton and Helmut Ripperger, David McKay Company, Inc., New York, 1951
