Berinjela!

Why do I love eggplants so much? It’s hard to know, but as I’ve said many a time, it just isn’t a meal unless there is eggplant – beringela, in Portuguese – on the plate. Fortunately Brazilians also seem to love eggplant, so I can eat it, both in and out, with regular frequency – sometimes even twice a day. I am not sure if there is an official “eggplant season”, but eggplants in Brazil are plentiful and inexpensive these days. The last one I bought put me back a mere 12¢. Last week in Rio, Mark and I were perusing a bookstore when there on the table was a cookbook dedicated to the eggplant! I couldn’t believe it! A whole cookbook, just on eggplant. It reminded me of the “all lentils all the time” website that I started a few years back [may its memory rest in peace].

The eggplant cookbook is part of a series produced by the Association of Restaurants of Good Memory – A Associação dos Restaurantes de Boa Lembrança – in collaboration with the National Commercial Apprenticeship Service (SENAC) and Varig, one of the Brazilian airlines [please, no mentions of regional aircraft trade disputes]. The Associação dos Restaurantes de Boa Lembrança is a network of restaurants in Brazil which serve special “signature” dishes. Each year, the signature dishes change and customers who order the dish receive a hand-painted ceramic plate which includes the name of the restaurant as well as the name of the dish, the city and the year. For some, it is a matter of pride to collect and display the plates from the restaurants. The other cookbooks in the series include Tomato, Beans, and Pork. For the eggplant cookbook, chefs from sixty-eight of the Boa Lembrança restaurants provided exclusive recipes for the collection. From eggplant crêpes-flan with crabmeat, pressed tomato and mango, served with arugula pesto to eggplant and marscapone cheese soufflé with orange sauce, this book has it all! I have been having great fun the last few days perusing the recipes and deciding which ones I want to make first. I will be sure to blog the results of the recipes!

Some interesting facts about eggplants:

• Tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes, bell peppers, and peppers are belong to the same family: solanacae;
• Eggplants were thought to cause epilepsy and dementia and the name for the eggplant in Italian – melanzana – literally means “mad apple”;
• According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the eggplant is the now the ninth most produced vegetable in the world;
• Between 1591 and 1923 eggplants were blamed for 500 major fires in Istanbul as the city’s wooden houses would catch fire after sparks from the eggplant grills would be carried through the wind.