Erica De Mane

John’s Basilicata-Canadian eggplant?

Recipe:

Melanzane a Scapece Colapinto Style

Erica!

I love the lost recipes idea. I checked out the link you sent. Awesome. So here’s my question to you.

When I was a kid growing up in Toronto, our family would go to dinner every Sunday at my dad’s parents’ house. My paternal grandparents were allegedly from a town called Pisticci, located near the instep of the boot, but as you know from your visit there not long ago, there seems to be no one who remembers Colapintos, and the graveyard seemed to be free of tombstones bearing our name. [When researching my book The Flavors of Southern Italy, I took the opportunity while in Basilicata to go see the town my friend John’s family was from, but it is true, there were no Colapintos in the graveyard, so who knows. Mel Gibson was nearby filming The Passion of the Christ, evidently choosing the area because it was so dry, desolate, and biblical. –E. De M.] All of this is deeply suspicious but not untypical of the murky picture that my grandparents always painted of our family’s history in the Old Country. That generation of Italian immigrants (they came over here in 1921) seemed mostly content to forget the past and get on with living in the New World. Except of course when it came to food, which brings me to my grandmother’s eggplant. She cooked this amazing eggplant appetizer that she’d serve cold before the staggeringly delicious, and ample, main courses. The eggplant was sliced thin, then possibly fried, possibly with a weight on it or something to mash the eggplant rounds flat, then allowed to cool, and then lightly dusted with a very sharp-tasting hard cheese grated to a very fine texture. The eggplant was not oily or heavy; it had a fantastic bite that made the lips almost sting. I’ve never encountered this version of eggplant anywhere else, and my two brothers and sister and I still speak of it with reverence and, of course, a touch of sadness, since my grandparents and, alas, my father are all now gone and there’s no one left to ask about this vanished fragment of our childhoods. Any thoughts?

Much love, John

Hi John,

I’d like to work on your eggplant flatties, but maybe I need to ask you a few things first.

The Basilicata region , which Pisticci is part of, is known for its hot chili peppers. They throw them in everything. Did this eggplant have a hot chili element to it that you can recall? Also, I’ve tasted eggplant in nearby Campania that seemed pressed and almost leathery but maybe not fried. Could you describe the texture a bit more? Was its inside soft? Simply frying eggplant slices, like what you’d do for an eggplant parmigiano, would produce crispy outside and soft inside. Was that the texture? Or maybe the pressing made it more compact. My grandmother made fried eggplant that she then drizzled with vinegar, garlic, and red pepper flakes and let sit around a few days to become puckery and spicy, almost too much so. Her eggplant was rather soft in texture. No cheese was ever put on it though. If you answer those questions, I’ll get on the case, hunt around, and see what I can come up with.

Love,

Erica

John then contacted his brother to see what he could recall of the family eggplant dish. Here’s what his brother wrote:

Erica’s questions are very interesting. In my advancing years my memory seems to be failing along with my body, but I recall the eggplant as being thin as well, like it was “pressed down.” It had a chewy exterior and was soft but not mushy inside. I don’t remember it as being hot from peperoncino (chilies), but remember I am about to turn 51.

Great picture of Johnny in his tie-bello ragazzo!

Love, Ted

It seems to me I’ve never encountered a Southern Italian antipasto spread in any restaurant that didn’t include a plate of darkly glistening room-temperature eggplant slices. When I was a kid they scared me; I was afraid they’d be too bitter and vinegary, and often they were, but when done with finesse they were often the best thing on the table, and I’d keep going back for more, often until my lips were slightly swollen from their addictive sting.

My fear of vinegary eggplant comes from the version of this dish served by my own grandparents, which was absolutely drenched in vinegar; biting was an understatement. (For some reason all the men in my family, my father, uncle, and grandfather, had an obsession with vinegary foods.) Neither John nor his brother Ted mention this eggplant’s having a vinegar taste, but I’m guessing that’s what gave it its “bite” (aside from eggplant’s natural subtle stinginess). Scapece is a style of dish very popular in Southern Italy, usually done with vegetables (zucchini is popular). The vegetable is first cooked and then marinated in a mix of vinegar, garlic, and herbs, sometimes including anchovies or hot chilies. This is a typical dish of Calabria, Campania, and in the far south of Basilicata, where John’s alleged ancestral town of Pisticci is located.

When I set out to recreate the Colapinto family eggplant, I cut way down on the amount of vinegar usually used. I also took it upon myself to replace the more typical red wine vinegar with balsamic, a kinder, gentler addition, not one likely to have been included in any dish in an Italian-American (or -Canadian) household in the l960s or early ’70s, when John ate his eggplant, but better than most of the harsh red wine vinegar we can buy here. And since Basilicata is famous for its spicy food, I included a touch of hot chili, which seemed only right, not too much but just enough for a little zing.

My first try at this produced something good, but the texture was not what John described. I realized I was subconsciously recreating the exact eggplant dish my family used to make; the eggplant was sliced about a quarter inch thick, fried, and then left to sit in a vinegary marinade. It was slightly crisp on the outside but soft, almost custardy, inside, even after being salted and weighted before cooking. Okay, now what? This was not the “chewy,” “almost leathery” texture John had recalled. The only really chewy eggplant I ever ate was some my grandmother’s cousin Tony sent me home from Campania with in a little glass jar (he put up all sorts of vegetables). He “cooked” eggplant strips simply by pouring a hot vinegar solution over them and letting them marinate for a few hours (he made his own vinegar, so the results were less puckery than you’d think). Then he’d drain it and packed the eggplant in olive oil. The texture of this stuff was truly chewy, rubbery really. I found a very similar recipe called Melanzane sott’Olio in Arthur Schwartz’s fine book Naples at Table. An almost identical recipe appears in Giuliano Bugialli’s Foods of Naples, so this is obviously a classic Neapolitan way to achieve rubbery eggplant, if that’s what you’re after. But John insisted that his eggplant was fried and not packed in oil, so although chewy enough, this was not the Colapinto family’s approach.

So I tried my idea again, this time slicing the eggplant thinner, about an eighth of an inch thick, and then proceeding with the flattening, frying, and marinating. Better now, really delicious to my taste. More like sharp eggplant potato chips. I made excellent sandwiches with slices of this eggplant and buffalo mozzarella and then served the rest the next night in a salad with arugula and mozzarella, with the eggplant chips sitting on top (as in the photo above).

I think my new thinner version is just leathery enough, with a slight tenderness at the center. But is this the Colapinto eggplant? I’ll have to wait for John to tell me. Cooking is so personal and creative that even a classic dish like this one will be made differently by each cook, and the little dish that was trapped and cherished in a person’s family kitchen will to some extent always remain there. But it’s certainly fun to try. And this has got to be somewhat on the mark.

Here’s something really important: Buy good eggplant. I made this dish in February, not July, so I couldn’t go to the greenmarket for its amazing Southern Italian violet striped eggplants, grown in upstate New York. But I did find firm, shiny dark purple organic ones with surprisingly little bitterness, shipped in from Central America, I think, and better than what I usually can find in the dead of winter.

I’m guessing that the sharp grated cheese that John remembered topping this eggplant was provolone, usually the only Italian grating cheese on hand at the time, or possibly Pecorino Romano, Often a mix of vinegar and sharp cheese tastes a little pukey to me, but since this eggplant was so gently vinegared, the little dusting of cheese was very nice. I went with a raw-milk Provolone.

Now the only thing left is for John to actually make this dish. Somehow I can’t really imagine him frying up a mess of eggplant, as much as he’d like to relive his childhood. I think I’ll have to invite him over for dinner and have his dish already made, which is fine with me. Come on over, John. I’ll make your mouth pucker.

Melanzane a Scapece Colapinto Style

(Serves 4 as an appetizer)

2 medium, firm, eggplants (on the long, narrow side, if you can find them), unpeeled and cut into 1/8-inch-thick rounds
Sea salt
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
A pinch of sugar
A pinch of ground nutmeg
A small piece of fresh red hot chili pepper, minced (the long, skinny red peperoncino will give you the right flavor)
1 garlic clove, very thinly sliced
Extra-virgin olive oil and vegetable oil for frying
About a tablespoon of grated Pecorino Romano cheese
A small handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped

Lightly salt the eggplant slices on both sides and lay them out between layers of paper towels. Place a sheet pan on top and weight it with something heavy (a stew pot, or something like that) for about 2 hours (this will press out excess moisture so the eggplant browns better). Brush off excess salt.

Meanwhile pour the balsamic vinegar into a small bowl. Add the sugar, nutmeg, chili, a pinch of salt, and the garlic. Let this sit to develop flavor while the eggplant is under the weight.

Pour about an inch of oil (a mix of olive oil and Canola is good for this) into a wide, deep-sided skillet. When hot, add the eggplant slices, and brown them well on both sides. Lay them out on paper towels to absorb excess oil.

Lay the eggplant slices out, slightly overlapping, on a serving platter. Drizzle with the vinegar mixture, and let it come to room temperature. Sprinkle with a little grated provolone, and garnish with the parsley.

You can refrigerate leftovers, but bring them back to room temperature before serving again. They will keep for about 4 days, refrigerated.