It’s still summer

I love eggplant/aubergine/melanzane, but it is not an unconditional love. She has to trick herself out with delicious things to make me love her. Not for me the lonely slice of eggplant sprayed with a film of oil and baked in hopes of aping grilled or fried slices. My tongue knows that is approximate to the cardboard of egg cartons…. maybe that’s why Americans call it eggplant? The very nature of this beauty is to be airy, spongy and almost tasteless when raw. She has seeds which develop quickly and become hard while still in edible flesh. If she sounds like a loser, well, she is until she meets Miss Olive Oil, Mrs. Garlic, Madame Onion and the Mistresses Herbs. She can actually put on a decent show with only Miss Oil and a bit of salt if required, but why stop there? Who is it we love? Melanzane Aubergine or Oil? I know my answer.

For the past few weeks, while Italy was at the sea or in the mountains, I have been cooking eggplant/aubergine/melanzane. You’ve already had one day’s work posted a couple of weeks ago, but the project was ongoing and there’s more. After all, it’s still summer and there are lots of these lovelies still on the vines.

She comes in many guises. For weeks now I have been watching some particularly lovely white ones growing along one of the routes of my walks with Paola. There they sit, week after week. Why is not someone picking them before they are ruined with age? The ones I have bought and cooked have all been the elongated ordinary purple ones ahaped like a lightbulb.

I have cooked and cooked and photographed and eaten and shared. Tomorrow we will start to see what came out of all that.

Today, have a look at two different CSA boxes of late summer. They just get a lot more beautiful at this time of year.

[ad#Google Adsense][ad]