Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Eggplants
An eggplant is a thing of rare beauty. Its form ranges from as blocky and solid as a Botero
sculpture to as sinuous and flowing as a Modigliani. Its color can be the violet of a partic-
ularly magnificent sunrise or as black as a starless night. It can be alabaster white or even
red-orange and ruffled. And its beauty is more than skin-deep. The flesh is at once luxuri-
ous in texture and accommodating in flavor. So why does the eggplant scare people?
Most of it has to do, in one way or another, with the vegetable's supposed bitterness. Of
course, there's the classic recommendation that eggplant needs to be salted before cooking
to remove the bitterness. But that's just the start. Eggplants with large calyxes (the leafy-
looking green part that connects the vegetable to the stem) are bitter. Eggplants with more
seeds are bitter. Eggplants that are heavier are bitter. At least that's what some people say.
Others claim just the opposite: it's the lighter eggplants that are bitter. Some of the asser-
tions take an almost psychological turn: Eggplants that are old are bitter. Eggplants with
darker skins are bitter. Eggplants that are male are bitter. (For the record, botanically speak-
ing eggplants are fruits and therefore neither male nor female.)
Let's get one thing straight: most eggplants are not bitter (even though they have every
right to be after everything that has been said about them). At least they are no more bitter
than a green bell pepper or the tannic skin of a fresh walnut. They have a whisper of bit-
terness that adds to the taste rather than ruining it. In fact, it's that subtle edge that makes
eggplant such a great companion to so many flavors. Without that edge, it would be bland,
nothing more than field-grown tofu. But that earthy undertone serves to focus our attention
on other flavors, the way a bass line complements a melody.
Combine that natural accommodation with a spongelike absorbency, and eggplant is one
of nature's great sidemen. It soaks up the flavor of whatever it is cooked with, and somehow
amplifies and smoothes out that flavor in the process. Good olive oil has no greater friend
than eggplant and vice versa. Fry eggplant in olive oil, and what once was a hard, dry, al-
most pithy vegetable becomes downright voluptuous. The surface crisps slightly, and the
inside turns creamy and smooth. (Also make sure to brush eggplant with oil before grilling.
It will keep the surface from drying out.)
