Hil, did you get some oddball eggplants recently, or am I thinking of someone else?

I got these at the farmers market today, mostly because of the cute. [link]

Some are Thai, some Turkish.

Anyone have ideas on what to do with them?

[More helpful than my sister's "you can add in the Japanese eggplant you have growing and have a Global Eggplant Summit!" Which, granted, is now most likely what I'll call whatever I come up with, but not so much help in the execution.]

Yeah, I got a bunch of the orange Turkish ones, but they got mushy before I had a chance to cook them. My plan was slicing, frying in olive oil, and then adding a tahini garlic sauce.

Eggplant comes in not-purple? Whoa.

I know! I've seen paler purple or ones that are striated with white but these were new to me.

Report back on whether they taste different, whatever you end up doing with them. I need more data on this anomaly before I can fully process it, I think.

Lots of vegetables come in all different colors. I've seen purple carrots! It's only in the past few hundred years, as agriculture has gotten more industrialized, that we've picked just one or two kinds of each to be the "standard," usually because that kind would keep the longest or travel best. It used to be that each place would grow whichever kind grew best there, and so different places would end up with different colors and shapes.

Are you wearing your hard hat to protect you from that? Did you fill out an accident report?

It does feel that way sometimes. I need to get at least a few of my crew certified for aerial lift/manlift devices and for fall protection and it's just super confusing on how I get them set up for the classes.

I grew up with heirloom tomatoes, I ought to be able to take this in stride, but, I don't know, purple carrots are less freaky than orange eggplant. Possibly because the only thing I like about eggplant is the color.

There's also green eggplant.

I remember reading an excerpt from somebody's journal -- I think it was Thomas Jefferson, but it might have been George Washington -- describing the progress in his vegetable garden, and almost nothing was the same color that we expect it to be now.

The eggplant summit is underway. They're salting and will go into the oven to roast with red peppers also from my porch garden. (Holy crap, those suckers are hot! I put a few different kinds in a pot and promptly forgot which was what or really, what any of them are.)

I haven't quite figured out the next step yet but I'm sure inspiration will come.