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It may be the Year of the Pig by the Chinese calendar, but this is turning out to be the Summer of the Rat for food lovers.

A cute little cartoon rat named Remy, to be specific.

The hit film Ratatouille, about a rodent who aspires to become a chef, has been so lauded for its intricate portrayal of a professional kitchen, one senses it may become required viewing at culinary academies across the land.

But more immediately I suspect it is about to cause a global run on eggplants, bell peppers and zucchini, because the first impulse of any self-respecting foodie upon exiting the theatre is to scurry to the nearest market and then home to the Thermador to recreate the movie's namesake dish.

And what a dish. A reinvented, tall-food twist on the classic Provençal vegetable stew, it conveniently involves vegetables that are just coming into season.

Instead of irregular chunks simmered into a gloppy stew and slopped onto the plate, the movie version involves loonie-sized discs roasted on a bed of bell-pepper-and-tomato sauce and fanned out intricately like the bellows of an accordion.

It's an ingenious reinterpretation that one might expect at a famous restaurant. And no wonder.

A close reading of the credits reveals a couple of famous consultants to the film, including Guy Savoy of the eponymous Michelin-three-star restaurant in Paris, and Thomas Keller of Napa Valley's iconic French Laundry.

The film's producers even signed up for cooking classes and took field trips to famed kitchens in France.

That research yielded not just the rarefied ratatouille but a panoply of fast-paced and sometimes subtle food-fanatic detail, including photorealistic recreations of famous wine bottles. In one scene, the feared restaurant critic Anton Ego (voiced by Peter O'Toole) is plied with several bottles of Château Lafite (you have to look closely) while waiting interminably for his appetizer. The Cheval Blanc he asks for never does arrive.

"As one friend of mine who is in the food world put it, 'After about 20 minutes, I didn't even realize it was animation any more,' " said Barbara Fairchild, editor-in-chief of Bon Appétit magazine, the popular U.S. monthly for food lovers, copies of which make a few cameos in the film. "I had no idea that we were going to be featured so prominently. Trust me, this was not any kind of paid-for product placement at all."

Ms. Fairchild said that she, too, had the urge to make several dishes after seeing the film in Los Angeles on Sunday, and that the ratatouille looked pretty easy. "You have the classic dish. It's just done a different way."

Well, at least she knows her way around the French country classics.

I made the dish after seeing the movie, or at least tried to. And for the first time I found myself standing dolefully in a kitchen praying that a rat would scamper out from the baseboards to save the meal. Remy, little buddy, where were you?

Since my own story lacks the seamless plot of the wonderful movie, I don't mind giving away my ending up front: The slightly soggy finished product did not achieve the impressive altitude of the one in the film. Then again, I can take consolation in the fact I didn't have the supporting cast Remy did.

Mr. Keller, of The French Laundry, is the genius behind the ratatouille redux on which the plot ultimately pivots.

Remy, being a species non grata in the world of human restaurant kitchens, manages to gratify his culinary inclinations furtively by befriending Linguini, a garbage boy employed at a famous Paris restaurant called Gusteau's. In the climactic scene, Gusteau's is facing a labour walkout, and Linguini, who has just inherited the business, must prepare for a sudden visit by the crusty food critic Ego.

That's when Remy, assisted by his rat pack, springs into action, ultimately winning Ego's Proustian heart with a rarefied yet humble dish that calls to mind his childhood comfort food.

It turns out Remy's, or I should say Mr. Keller's, culinary twist - essentially a slow-roasted vegetable confit - is not as novel as I'd thought. Oven roasting is a classic way to prepare ratatouille, as I have gleaned from several cookbooks, including my handy home copies of Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cook and Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.

In contrast with the stovetop method, it preserves more of the vegetables' structural integrity and individual colours. Mr. Bittman's recipe in particular, which accompanies this article, is blessedly simple enough for a human like me to follow, which is more than I can say for Mr. Keller's. (He also contributed to Ratatouille: What's Cooking, a kids' cookbook based on the movie.)

For the record, I followed Mr. Keller's intricate steps, the ones developed for the film and subsequently adapted for publication in The New York Times. I even used long, thin, Japanese eggplants - as opposed to the more common fat ones - to obtain those uniform, loonie-sized slices. It tasted great, but it took almost four hours, soiled half my kitchenware and, at the end of it all, failed to fold into the desired accordion shape. Pasty would be a good descriptor.

I intend to use the delicious leftovers as a relish for grilled hamburgers later in the week, though.

It'll be my own little twist on a classic American dish. In homage to Remy and Mr. Keller, I'm going to call them rat burgers.

*****

Mark Bittman's Oven-Baked Ratatouille

WHAT YOU NEED

10 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced in half

2 large onions, thinly sliced

2 large eggplants, about 2 pounds total, sliced 1/2-inch thick and salted if time allows

4 red or yellow bell peppers, stemmed, peeled if desired, seeded and sliced into 3 or 4 pieces each

4 ripe red tomatoes, cored, skins and seeds removed and cut into thick slices

1 teaspoon fresh thyme, rosemary or savoury leaves

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley, basil or chervil leaves for garnish

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

WHAT YOU DO

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

In a casserole, make a layer of onion, followed by one of eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, herbs, salt, pepper and garlic cloves. Repeat.

Drizzle the ratatouille with oil and place it in the oven. Bake for about an hour, pressing down on the vegetables occasionally, until they are all completely tender.

Garnish and serve, hot or at room temperature.

Serves 4.

Source: How to Cook Everything, by Mark Bittman (Wiley & Sons Canada Ltd.)