A good reason to perfect the canning technique is that for those of us living in households where they are the only one who understands the subtle perfection of an eggplant (or beet or zucchini or artichoke), it allows us to capture the season, indulging at our leisure without risk of creating the world’s largest compost pile.

I couldn’t resist the glossy royal purple eggplants from Gabriola Greenhouse displayed at Village Foods. I bought two a few weeks ago; planning to…I’m not sure what. And even though I knew I was being foolish, perhaps even frivolous, I went back and bought two more last week. At the very least, they would make a lovely centre piece, intermingled with lemons in a cut-glass bowl.

It didn’t take Jordan long to sniff out the offensive, purple torpedoes in the veg crisper.

“What are those?”

To which I responded, in the most evasive way I could muster, “What are what?”

“Those!” I could see the look of disgust and distrust on his face. Was it possible that I was going to try and disguise them as baba ghanoush, a puree of eggplant, lemon, tahini, and so much garlic that it could be puree of rice by the time you are finished; a ploy that had succeeded in the past?

“I am going to make caponata,” I said.

“So am I; for a small catering I am doing.”

I asked what recipe he was using, because I was still tinkering around looking for one that was close to the caponata I remember enjoying with some of my Italian friends.

“It calls for kalamata olives, capers, garlic, and anchovies,” he said.

“And eggplant…” I prompted.

“Eggplant? In tapenade?”

“Not tapenade; caponata.”

“Tapenada?”

“NO!” (I was beginning to lose it.) “CAPONATA!”

The conversation was beginning to bear a striking similarity to a recent TV commercial where a man, speaking to some sort of sales man asks about a company called “Canadian Direct,” and the idiot behind the desk keeps repeating, “Bouvarian Gurrect?” It is quite annoying.

This conversation was also getting quite annoying.

So, I just went ahead and made the stuff.

Caponata, a classic Sicilian dish, is a marinated salad of eggplant, tomatoes, olives, garlic, and capers; sautéed and mixed with olive oil and red wine vinegar. It can also include red peppers, zucchini, celery, anchovies, pine nuts, or raisins—now that’s weird—and is generally seasoned with chilies, black pepper, salt, basil, and/or oregano.

It can be cooked up like a stew and served hot—Jamie Oliver calls his dish a “Sicilian Aubergine Stew”— but traditionally, the dish is served as a cold or room-temperature salad on an antipasto platter and eaten with hearty bread, or as a condiment for fish and egg dishes. It also makes a wonderful topping for pasta or pizza.

Most recipes I found were intended for either immediate consumption, or to make a jar or two that could be left marinating in the fridge and used up in a few weeks. In my case, a long shelf-life was required, unless I suddenly found a new family. After digging through countless recipes, I found an actual canning recipe for pickled eggplant, Mediterranean style, or caponata.

The recipe called for peeled and julienned eggplant, placed in a colander, salted, and left to drain in the sink for an hour. The texture of an eggplant is sponge-like, and it holds a lot of moisture. Drawing the liquid out of eggplant with salt is important for several reasons. The juice can be bitter, especially if the eggplant is old. Draining the eggplant produces a denser flesh which means that it can’t absorb as much oil in dishes where it is being fried or release so much liquid that it makes the final dish too watery.

If you are planning to pickle eggplant, the peel is usually removed and it is cut into thin strips. This allows for more consistency in the canning process. If you are preparing a dish that will be consumed right away, and the eggplant is young and in good, firm shape, the beautiful peel is usually left on for colour and texture, and the eggplant cut into cubes.

After draining, the eggplant is boiled briefly in a vinegar/solution, and then mixed with the remainder of the ingredients. I used sautéed onion, chopped red pepper, capers, chopped kalamata olives, and oregano.  

The hot mixture is then ladled into prepared canning jars which have garlic halves and cloves already placed in the bottom.

All three of my finished jars looked so darn pretty! I thought I was going to make more, but one of the two oldest eggplants had turned a bit soft, and I try to follow the first rule of canning: always start with unblemished and top-quality ingredients.

The sealed jars were supposed to be stored “in a cool and dark” place for four weeks to allow the flavours to properly meld, but as luck would have it, one of my jars didn’t seal, and rather than going through the whole process of re-processing just one jar, I decided to store it in the fridge.  A few nights ago, I had it with some grilled, fresh halibut. It was divine!

So, I said to my son, “I made this caponata,” and he said, “Tapenade?”

Do I have a speech impediment?