Pickled Eggplant
(aka: Rebel Food)

These jars of pickled eggplant just may be the prettiest items in my pantry. You should know right off the bat that this recipe is by a British author named Nora Carey from her book called "Perfect Preserves". I love this book. I love Nora. I think she'd be startled to know that. There are interesting preserves, the most inspiring kitchen garden pictures, and recipes that call for the preserves in the book so that you know what the hell to do with them once you've made them all. It is my favorite preserving book. However, the methods used in it are distinctly British in that jams are not zapped into flavorless anonymity by over-processing. In fact, most jams aren't processed at all.

It's not just distinctly British to stick to traditional methods of canning and preserving, it's very European to not ditch Grandma's pickled eggplant because a government agency is worried about lawsuits. What I'm trying to tell you is that this recipe for pickled eggplant is

UNSANCTIONED BY THE USDA.

I made it anyway. The USDA is extremely skittish about preserving anything in olive oil. For the last few years the stance was "YOU WILL DIE IF YOU PRESERVE ANYTHING IN OLIVE OIL" They are now slightly backing down from that rather dire stance. Now they are allowing that maybe, maybe it's not so dangerous to store sun dried tomatoes in olive oil at room temperature provided there aren't any fresh herbs in it.

I have done a lot of reading about the reasons for different canning methods, about the science that backs up our belief that it isn't safe to preserve eggplant. I've read the USDA book of canning, I've called the canning hot-lines, and I've listened to some very heated discourse on the subject on a canning forum. It isn't easy to get at the science of it all because only the food scientists really know and they don't think us lay people can use that information safely. I think that's a form of oppression. Personally, I think that our fear of food-borne illness is threatening our rich and diverse catalog of family canning and preserving traditions.

Do I want to die of botulism? Of course not. However, I will use my brain in this matter, not a government agency, to make my own decisions. I have found at least three recipes for pickled eggplant, all of them calling for some form of vinegaring and spicing and then storing at room temperature in olive oil. All of those recipes were either European or Middle Eastern. These are traditional recipes. Here's something I've never heard about: lots of European and Middle Eastern home canners dying of botulism. Oh wait, I haven't heard of many American home canners dying of botulism either.

I am tired of food paranoia. This recipe seems pretty safe to me. First you cut the eggplant in 1/2" slices, toss them in a bowl with a lot of course sea salt (I think "tossing" is not really a good word here. Half inch slices of eggplant don't really "toss" easily.), and then layer them on either paper towels or kitchen towels and weight them with something heavy. I used a big wooden cutting board held down by a 24 lb box of apples. You let them sweat for at least an hour.

After that you brush them off and cook them for 5 minutes in white vinegar. What happens is that the vinegar then replaces any moisture in the slices making them less susceptible to rot or botulism, which doesn't happen to like vinegar. You pat them dry and then after letting them cool down you layer them in sterilized jars that you put a half inch of olive oil in before filling, and once your eggplant has reached the top, you cover completely with more olive oil and add a teaspoon of corriander seeds.

When you're processing anything in a boiling water bath canner for at least ten minutes it's not actually necessary to pre-sterilize your jars. The processing will kill off anything that might be on them or in them. For this recipe, however, it's vital to sterilize the jars for ten minutes in boiling water because they won't be processed further.

This is my one slice of eggplant that didn't make the cut. When the vinegar saturates the slices they turn slightly translucent. This piece was too thick for the vinegar to penetrate. So I tossed it out. It's beautiful though, isn't it?

I do take other people's safety in my kitchen pretty seriously and I don't plan to feed these to anyone without making them sign a waiver to sue me if anything happens. Because I'm American and that's the kind of thing we do. Jesus.

Max has just informed me that these jars look like cans of throw up and poop.

I really want to make some more of these. I'm afraid that the coriander seeds I bought are very old and not all that aromatic. One of the recipes that Nora includes for using these pickled eggplants is to put the slices on a home made pizza. Oh boy, that sounds so good. I'm excited by the combination of the earthiness of eggplant with the added zing of vinegar, and the richness of the oil. Not a diet food, of course. Nicole Montesano, a food writer for our local newspaper and another canning spaz like me (it must be said that like Lisa E., she is elegantly quiet in her spazziness), gave me a recipe she found for pickled eggplant that I may need to try as well. Now I'm not sure where I've put it, but while the eggplant is cheap at my favorite farm (Bernards), it seems a shame not to make some more.

On a side note, I left some tomatoes in a bucket for much too long and missed the fact that two of them were rotting and hatching a cloud of fruit flies. Fruit flies are a fixture in my kitchen during canning season. An unpleasant fact of life. It's what happens when large quantities of fruits continuously make their juicy way through my house. However, usually there's just a few and aren't much of a nuisance. Oy. I have about a hundred of them in my kitchen. So if anyone knows of any great traps for them, let me know. I have put out some fly paper, and while it's caught some of the slower more stupid ones, the others seem to know what it is and are not getting fooled. I still have a ton of fruit to process so it's not like I can just rid my kitchen of all fruit fly food right now.

So, in closing, I would like to say that if for some unfortunate reason my brave rebellion of the USDA's oppression turns sour on me and I die of botulism from eating my beautiful eggplants, this is what I want on my tombstone:

"Although she ordered the exact same meal at the Hotel Oregon EVERY SINGLE TIME SHE WENT, she was brave enough to eat pickled eggplant. Let it be duly noted: Angelina was not a total food coward"

Maybe that's too expensive. That's a lot of words and we don't have a lot of money. Maybe the community can collect some donations?

Fruit fly update: Between using Karmyn's method and standing patiently like a zen master in order to strike like lightening and kill them with the smack of bare hands I have reduced the fruit fly population almost to nothing. I've still got about five of them that I can't seem to get at. But five, I think you'll all agree, is so much less disturbing than over 100 of them.

The Very First Pickle

Want to freak out the Master Canners of America? All you have to do is whisper in their ears:

"Ingredient Substitution"

and they will flutter around in paroxysms and will require smelling salts to revive them at which point all you have to do is say:

"Botulism"

to send them into a catatonic state. You must not cross the line though and suggest you're thinking of selling your home made jam to the neighbors because it's entirely possible they will send your entire state on a man-hunt for your wicked ass.

There is an oppressive attitude persisting out there that home canning is a dangerous activity that only USDA officials should attempt. The first time I wanted to make some jam I consulted the book "Putting Food By" which almost put the fear of God in me it was so filled with warnings and precautions and the assumption that the average person is incapable of preserving food safely or paying attention to such details as WASHING YOUR HANDS. I almost didn't try canning after that.

Which would have been a shame because it is one of the most soul satisfying things I do in my life. Canning was "discovered" and developed by non-USDA officials; by people trying to figure out how to eat things once they'd begun to rot; by people who needed to save the food they had in abundant times against those lean months when their babies were hungry. Ordinary men and women experimented over centuries to learn how to dry tomatoes in the sun, how to bury disgusting fish in the ground to dig up later and eat like wild dogs*, and how to ferment cabbage to make the world's most repulsive condiment**.

Preserving food revolutionized human existence. It enabled people to be able to stay in one place during the winter and survive. Although scientists have made quite a lot of advances in home preserving and it's overall safety, they are hardly responsible for the very developed knowledge humans have of what kind of mold is safe to eat and what is not. Scientists have unlocked a lot of answers as to WHY certain methods of preserving aren't as healthy as others, but it was people like you and me who have been developing this craft for thousands of years now.

So when I hear people get all twittery about messing with the USDA's safe recipes I get a little itchy for a fight. I practice safe canning methods. I am clean. My utensils are clean. My kitchen is clean. I follow the recipes, I understand what elements of recipes can be altered and which should not be messed with. However, I refuse to believe that my food will not be safe unless I bleach every jar and pot and counter. I refuse to bow down to the deep fear that has taken hold of many modern people concerning home canned goods. You are NOT safer eating foods from commercial canning facilities. You can get botulism in all kinds of interesting ways and home canned goods are merely one small way. And all you need to do is be reasonably careful and understand the importance of acidity in foods to make safe food.

You have a way better chance of dying in a car crash than you do of dying of botulism from some one's home canned goods. The odds are staggering. Yet almost everyone is perfectly willing to look in the maw of death every day to get somewhere else.

But here's the deal: there aren't very many recipe books for canning. Not really. There are hundreds of minute variations of the same old piccalilli that your grandma used to make. There are a million reprints of the exact same recipes that are approved by the USDA. I think it's time that we all invested some money and expertise into coming up with new safe recipes that better reflect our modern tastes and needs in the kitchen. What about more pickles that aren't sweet? Or how about salsas without any green bell peppers and sugar? How about an apricot glaze for meat? Or what about a mustard that we can safely process and keep in the pantry for a year? How about a ratatouille for pressure canning?

I mentioned this need for new recipes to the master canner from the OSU I spoke with this morning and I'm pretty sure I sent her into an instant panic attack:

"New recipes? New recipes are UNSAFE! You must NEVER EVER change anything. There are PLENTY of recipes already. Why can't you just be satisfied with bread and butter pickles like everyone else? Who are you anyway- AN ANARCHIST?!!!"



*Burying food really connects us to our wild animal roots. My dog has refined the art of fermenting rawhide. I'm actually quite impressed with her ability to get it just black and stinky enough to please her very singular palate. She also manages to leave these tasty flaccid moist morsels on the carpet by my chair when I'm least expecting to step on them.
**I'm not a fan of sauerkraut or kim chi.