Purple Myths

Call it vegetable noir. Although eggplant’s popularity is growing rapidly, it’s still a mystery to many.

Perhaps it’s its appearance: There aren’t many purple fruits or vegetables. Perhaps it’s its ancestry: It is, after all, a nightshade, closely related to the poisonous belladonna.

But there’s nothing very scary about eggplant, despite the efforts of many generations of cooks to make it seem so. It’s delicious and easy to prepare.

In fact, grilled eggplant is one of the best quick dishes of summer. Simply slice it, brush it with garlic-flavored olive oil and grill it over medium heat. Turn it once, first brushing it again with oil and then give it a third smear when it comes off the fire. Layer it with a bunch of fresh herbs, which will steam into the fragrant hot meat, and you’ve got a heck of a dish.

Some will tell you that eggplant must be peeled, but that’s really only true in the case of very old eggplant, which turns bitter under the skin. Actually, very old eggplant is bitter everywhere, but especially under the skin. The best way to avoid the problem is to buy eggplant that is not shrunken or shriveled, has no soft spots and does not feel light for its size.

Other cooks insist that eggplant must be salted and left to sit before cooking. This makes a difference only when you’re frying eggplant. It improves the texture, making the meat soft and pillowy rather than fibrous, but it doesn’t affect the flavor.

In fact, eggplant is actually one of the more amiable vegetables. Toss it in a stew of other summer vegetables and it will melt into the crowd, leaving nothing behind but its voluptuous texture and a slightly smoky complexity of flavor.

Nothing scary about that.

Carolyn Olney of the Southland Farmers Market Assn. reports that Roger and Sandy Sanders near Bakersfield grow unusually sweet, organic canary melons that they sell at the Sunday Encino market, the Saturday Calabasas market and the Wednesday and Saturday Santa Monica markets.