Judith Anderson www.judithandersondaypainter.com

I would never grow eggplant if I were Puritanical. I would shield the eyes of the young from its fruit. The eggplant is a masterpiece of suggestion. Actually, this is not suggestion but bold sensuality. With its glossy skin, midnight colors, plump or pendulous bottom, and creamy white flesh, it is positively indecent.

It is also one of the most bewitching of fruits. The simple pleasure of holding a newly-harvested eggplant is not simple at all. Who cares if eggplant is edible? What difference does it make if contains vitamins or is poisonous? It is beautiful and that is enough. Its only defect is that it begins to shrivel perceptibly within hours of being picked. Cruel eggplant.

Eggplant is in the Solanaceae family and originated in India. It is easy to grow. I plant it in pots on my patio. It comes in many varieties, including white, light purple, black-purple, and orange. Its lavender flowers with yellow stamens are pretty and the large lobed leaves are extravagantly ornamental. It keeps producing fruit from July through September. The sight of these dangling from their woody stems is arresting. They are worth growing even if you hate to eat it.

Eating eggplant is the best compensation for the inevitable loss of its visual splendor. Some people are allergic to it, but if you cook it long enough most of the allergens disappear. One of the best ways to prepare it is to fry it in olive oil and then add smashed garlic, soy sauce, mushrooms, fresh tomatoes, zucchini and a little chicken broth. A fresh eggplant is firm and its skin taut. Julia Child recommends eggplant pizza.

Mrs. Child once made the mistake on her cooking show of stating that there are male and female eggplant fruit and that the female looks different from the male because it has a smooth bottom. She received grief from her viewers. There is no sex in fruit. She had gotten this bit of false trivia from her Italian grocer of course. When she confronted him with his error, he said, “Well, maybe so. But the long, thin eggplants with the smooth bottoms are still the best. We call them females.”

patio eggplant

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