Rosa Bianca

It’s not everyday that you get to eat purple food. Er, pink food. Um, pinkish-purple food? Sweets, yes, but something savory? And dare I say healthy?

Spring has lots of surprises, especially young, impish spring, which likes to play hide-and-seek in the month of April. There was a moment just this afternoon when snowflakes the size of cotton balls were swirling around outside my window. They came suddenly, silently, and then disappeared all at once. Crazy April.

 

This eggplant was one of April’s surprises for me, although I’ve read that eggplant season typically starts in late May and ends in early October. I suppose in this global world we live in there’s always a place where the season is just right.

The sign in the grocery store called this variety “Sicilian eggplant” (incidentally, the same store where I got the Sicilian blood oranges). A little research taught me that it is in fact an Italian heirloom eggplant called Rosa Bianca. It’s apparently a favorite among gourmands for its stunning skin color, often streaked with white, and also for its “creamy” flesh.

“Creamy” flesh? Yeah right. I’ve eaten plenty of eggplant – love the stuff – but never once have I thought, “Mmmm, so creamy.” Such a sexy adjective should be reserved for naughty things like dessert, not vegetables. But, of course, I had to investigate.

I purchased a tiny blackish-purple eggplant identified as an “Italian” eggplant. It looked to me like your typical eggplant, only in miniature. I tasted it side by side with the Rosa Bianca – first raw, then cooked identically, sautéed in olive oil with garlic, salt and pepper.

I hate to admit it, but the Rosa Bianca is creamier. OK, let me explain. It’s not creamy. It’s not. Creamy is risotto, chocolate pudding, my mother’s cheesecake; not eggplant. But in the context of one over the other, the raw Rosa Bianca has a kind of denser flesh that is “creamier” than the black eggplant, which is more sponge-like and watery. Cooked, the Rosa Bianca melted in my mouth and was pleasantly sweeter than the black variety. I left the skin on both and the black skin was tougher.

I am happy to report that there are some things in life that you can judge by the cover. And while there's not a lot of pinkish-purple in my wardrobe, I'll take it on my plate anytime.

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