Eggplant is almost the equivalent of a four-letter word in our home right now. It started last summer when I wanted to make eggplant and one of the first recipes I used called for steamed eggplant. Now, either steamed eggplant has the texture and taste of a semi-dry sponge or I don’t know how to steam eggplant. Irregardless, the results were not tasty. I later transformed the pieces of steamed eggplant into the delicious Spicy Sesame Eggplant & Snap Peas with Quiona.

Never mind that I also scored big successes with Stuffed Eggplant Parmesan and Moroccan Eggplant with Couscous that summer. Anytime I mentioned eggplant,  James’ reaction is one of horror and mocking. In an attempt to finally win him over, I recently made  Pasta w/ Sausage, Eggplant & Feta. Again, the dish received rave reviews but the eggplant continues to get no respect. Out of frustration, I even threatened to change the name of the website to “The Misunderstood Eggplant” as a sign of protest.

In an article from the New York Times, author Russ Parsons is quoted from his book How to Pick A Peach:

“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).”

The article continues to state that most people have strong opinions about eggplant, one way or the other, so it might be hard for me to convince James that eggplant is not all bad. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try, because eggplants are fabulous. While eggplant isn’t exactly Sweet, it certainly isn’t Bitter. Just give eggplant a chance!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 5:05 am and is filed under Bitter/Sweet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.