Cooking Vegetables the Size of a Small Dog – Chapter 1

OK, so sue me – no pun intended – I’ve never cooked an eggplant. And if the truth were known I’ve avoided the vegetable like most people avoid the plague. There is just something about it. It’s the size of a small dog, it isn’t white, egg-shaped nor does it have a yolk. Not only that, according to my resources it’s technically not a vegetable – it’s a fruit. It all seems a bit fishy to me like a giant hoax to convince one to eat something they probably will not enjoy.

In my research I discovered that eggplants originally came from Asia and the first species brought to Europe WERE actually white and egg-shaped. The name stuck even when the familiar purple eggplant reached Europe years later. 

Here are a few eggplant facts that you probably don’t need to know any more than I do and constitutes way too much information:

1. Eggplants were also called mad apples in some places, because people thought that eating an eggplant would make you go insane. (That would certainly explain some vegetarians I know – just kidding!)

2. Centuries ago, Chinese women used a dye taken from the eggplant to stain their teeth black. Sounds ghoulishly like a Halloween prank to me, but Oh Well!

3. Eggplant is a member of the nightshade family, all of which contain toxic alkaloids (potatoes, tomatoes and peppers also belong to this clan.) While all the fruits of the family are perfectly safe, don't eat any other part of the plant.

So why all this fuss over something I’ve spent fifty-two years trying to avoid? Because eggplant is one of the easiest things to grow in a garden. And they’re pretty. So I figure since I’m fairly new at this vegetable growing project I may as well pick a few varieties that are shoe-ins for success.  Hence the taste-test effort of the day.

Where does one get a recipe for eggplant you may ask? I know I did. I went straight to the top – Martha Stewart. Stay tuned for next week's adventure in ‘Cooking Vegetables the Size of a Small Dog.’