Subject: Re: Giusi - re ratatouille rec.food.cooking(1916788)

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Subject: Re: Giusi - re ratatouille

Posted on: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 09:14:14 +0200

"Melba's Jammin'" ha scritto nel messaggio
> Is there an Italian equivalent or comparable dish?

Yes, caponata is similar but sweet and sour, so I prefer ratatouille.

>My old neighbors, the Mezzengas, used to make >something they called
>"prascatina" < my > spelling may be WAY off. It may have been
>"brascatina." It was a
> melange of tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, mushrooms, eggplant, onions, >
> garlic and probably basil and oregano. Wetter than my ratatouille of >
> this afternoon.

That's sort of a generic term. I don't find a dish named that in any
region, but allowing for spelling, I think they meant to say brasatina,
which means a "little braise."

Just as ratatouille is from southern France, most of these eggplant-zucchini
things are southern Italian-- Campania, Sicily, Calabria, etc. There are
similar more organized dishes, stacked up and baked, or enclosed in pastry
cases of various kinds. It's an adventure, the Italian kitchen, because you
can drive 20 miles, ask someone how to make something you ate in the last
town and they will have never heard of it in this town. Our central Italian
lasagne is so different from the southern and Sicilian version that you
wonder that they used the same word.

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