Kids Do Not Have to Be Stupid; They Almost All Like Bechamel

Evidently, some people who have nothing better to do than complain about things, as if they were going to a restaurant just so they can pick away at the slightly overdone appetizer for the rest of the night even though everything else is fabulous, and they complain that the gustatory rodent epic Ratatouille is too intellectual for children. Brad Bird, director of Ratatouille and the surprisingly dark and multilayered The Incredibles, responds:

I would say a lot of people . . . who make family entertainment dumb it down for kids, and I am completely opposed to that. If you present it in an engaging way . . . it's OK for kids to be a little confused at points and wonder why something is happening. I think too much (family) entertainment is hostile to kids because you assume they are idiots.

I am in complete agreement with Mr. Bird. Not just because I want to be entertained as I watch a film that my co-species members in a more larval stage might be watching, but because I spent much of my youth experiencing complex plots, and it didn't hurt me at all.

Also, complex food. One of the joys of Ratatouille (and to be honest with you, I don't like ratatouille very much; stewed tomatoes and squash are just not appealing to me) is the deliciousness of the food prepared and the appeal of making something somewhat complicated. Which brings me back to bechamel. The butter/flour/milk mixture is a major constituent of foods as diverse as Emeril's "Manly Man" Lasagna ("manly man" being Emeril's code-word for "super-treif") and moussaka. It's one of those things that, if you cook, you need to know how it's done in theory, even if you're trying to keep the carbs and fat down in practice. And any movie that gets a person closer to making a bechamel or a mirepoix is a great film in my book.