I have always found the culinary world one which appeals to the baser senses. I find nobility in the peasant monks who eat in simplicity. Les Miserables’ Bishop of Digne feasted on rye bread and milk. It seems to me there is a virtue in intentionally reducing potential luxury to the level of survivability.

Maybe I’m wrong. Brad Bird’s Ratatouille brings us back to Paris and suggests just the opposite of Hugo – that survivability is for the rats. In Ratatouille we meet a rat, Remy, striving to be something more, something human. In the many merits of humanity he finds the greatest in man’s desire and ability to go beyond the necessities of satisfying hunger and create something elegant. So strong is Remy's vision of the higher world of human cuisine that we begin to share his pity for his family members who are content with the lifestyle of raiding the garbage.

One the one hand, I’m willing to accept that Remy's striving for something superior than the world of his essentially trashy family is probably representative of more than just the world of foodstuffs, but at the same time, I like the straightforward message that comes from our main course.

Though Ratatouille is constantly urging us to strive for the finer in our foods, mocking the rats who eat garbage and the humans who eat the garbage of frozen foods, the film twists on us at its climactic moment. When the dark, towering restaurant critic comes to challenge our young chef and his rat, Remy serves him ratatouille – a peasant’s meal.

Through it appeared that Ratatouille sought refinement and luxury, we discover, in its very title, the revelation that Ratatouille/ratatouille is not averse to simplicity itself, just that it cries out for our striving for exceptional in the midst of it. Being and achieving something more; and always moving, as Remy would say, forward.

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