Eggplant Escabeché
It’s summer. My husband and I sit at the oval wooden table over dinner, quiet music sifting down from the speakers above our heads. The sun sets golden to the West, sending glowing rays sparking with dust motes through the French doors of our kitchen. Setting sun plus dust motes gotta be the original glitter of the world. Our cat, Rascal, eats with us as is his wont. A social fellow, he’s like any ocicat - smart, athletic and beautiful - with all the behaviors of a dog wrapped into a cat’s sinuous body. His vocabulary includes dozens, if not one hundred, words in total.
We’ve eaten some of our favorites tonight, including a wonderful eggplant appetizer sourced from a Latin American friend of my family. This recipe for ‘Eggplant Escabeché’ has made it through 3 generations. The 4th generation will know it soon enough, but their tender palettes may not yet tolerate the heat of the chili peppers. This recipe has been adopted by my husband’s family and is even listed in the “Best Recipes” notebook that resides in the log cabin kitchen of the summer camp in the backwoods of Maine. Tonight, we eat the fragrant, purple-edged slices of eggplant on crackers, reserving the oil at the bottom of the jar for other dishes for another time. The evening light fades and the patio lights come on.
“Eggplant always reminds me of Leonard & Susie” I say. “They’d love this recipe.”
“Agreed. We should call them this weekend” says my husband.
“Yup.”
On a stained and yellowed 3” x 5” index card, this recipe is written in the style of cooking that I grew up with: the name of the person who gave it to you, little instruction, a list of ingredients, few proportions, options for variations and, of course, bad handwriting replete with mis-spellings. A person might have taught you to cook it, but the presumption was that you knew enough about the art of cooking to wing it until you either liked what you made or tossed the recipe card into the trash. Over time and the generations, the favored cards in my recipe box have gotten more and more worn, accumulating modifications, stains and variations through the years. One of the classics is my mother’s Cranberry Sauce, but that’s a story for another time.
Four key things with this recipe are firm eggplant, LOTS of cheap white vinegar, excellent olive oil and a good storage container. The recipe could not be simpler; cut American eggplant into thick rounds, ‘sweat’ in salt, sauteed in white vinegar, then layer in a jar with oil, herbs and chili flakes. It’s easy to use a gallon of vinegar as it boils off quickly and the eggplant fairly drinks it up the hot liquid. If the kitchen doesn’t smell like vinegar, you haven’t used enough or your fan is better than mine. The jar must have a lid that doesn’t dissolve in olive oil; I’ve made this mistake with a rubber gasket… oh, I should add that to the card. You get the idea how these cards devolve as the recipe evolves. My daughter-in-law wants copies now too. Lucky me.
Suddenly, Rascal bolts through his cat door in the next room and dashes into the kitchen. Startled, I see that his pupils are wide from being in the darkness and wild with excitement from the mouse he’s got in his mouth. The mouse shrieks and wiggles. Rascal takes one look at him, then at me and races back out the cat door.
“What’s up with that Rascal? No torture tonight?” The mouse drags its back legs around the floor, bleeding as it goes. Loudly, Rascal bolts again through the cat door and races into the kitchen, fairly throwing his catch on the kitchen floor near the first victim. He looks at me wild-eyed, glances at his two mice as if counting them, then spins and jumps in place on all four claws with apparent glee. I fear for the integrity of the wooden floor. He swiftly turns tail and races out again, the cat door flap banging as he flings himself outside again.
“You gonna clean those up?” asks my husband mildly.
“Um hum”, I say, chewing my last mouthful of Eggplant Escabeché. “Just getting up now.”
Not 5 minutes later, here comes Rascal again, his head lifted high, neck muscles bulging with the strain of the weight he’s hefting.
There’s a rat in the kitchen.
To be continued…
COPYRIGHT NOTICES:
Blog content: PlantShare LLC, copyright 2023 - present. All Rights Reserved.
