Making ratatouille

I’ve watched a lot of videos over the life of Youtube. Some have been badly edited or badly lit or both; some have desperately needed better writing or clearer presentation. The ones that survive are getting progressively better. Quality lights and mics are available to anyone with a little bit of money; by a little bit, I mean you can get a good enough mic for the cost of an average restaurant meal, not fast food, but sit-down restaurant with table service.

Everybody and their cats are making videos, especially the cats. The subjects are as wide ranging as human interest: space, science, history, animation, how to, comedy, ranting, advice, weird news. Some of the most restful are simply someone doing a thing, a simple activity like cooking a dish, with no words, a few notes of music.

I watched someone make ratatouille, \rat-ah-TOO-ee\, a French dish that I only recognize because it’s featured in the movie, Ratatouille. I admired the calm setting and colorful arrangement of ingredients. The surface was a sheet of marble countertop; a basket of vegetables framed the scene on one side. The background was the rustic dress of the chef, a gathered cloth in plain cream, amazingly clean for someone cooking tomato sauce. What got me, though, was dropping onions into a pan on this countertop, accompanied by sizzling sounds.

I know, logically, that this is a setup and the sounds are added in post, recorded while cooking on an actual stove. But for a moment my brain said, “Wait a minute! This rustic person is cooking on a marble-patterned glass top stove, not a fire… and the wicker basket is on this same surface? WHAT?”