I didn’t like eggplant or aubergine as the British call them when I was young..my mum made them into “imam papoutsakia”( little shoe shaped eggplants filled with minced meat and béchamel sauce) or Greek ratatouille (Briam or Tourlou) in the oven…they mostly came out overcooked on the outside and very bitter tasting on the inside,

I think it was the bitterness that I didn’t like as a kid and as I grew up that changed and so I started to like them more.

Our tastes and what we like and dislike change as we grow up. Food that we couldn’t stand to even look at as youngsters we now eat with relish. Especially the bitter tastes which we start to wish for. Unless of course we remain babies! :)

Actually bitter food is proof of its wonderful flavonoids, phenols and polyphenols: chemical combinations that are very good for our health and have a protective effect for diseases such as cancer, high blood pressure and cholesterol and other great benefits.

There are olive oils here that we can buy which have high levels of polyphenols; something which enables the manufacturer to claim and receive verification that  their product has medicinal benefits for our health. 

However the bitter tasting foods tend to be disappearing from our lives. The food manufacturers do whatever they can to alter the taste of their products to not include this type of taste.

The grapefruit we eat today bears no relation in taste to that which we ate 10-15 years ago. None at all..The same is with the eggplants which these days you don’t need to “sweeten” hardly ever these days.

The reason for all of this discussion about bitterness is a post on Facebook by my friend Giorgos who made a wonderful Moussaka yesterday but mentioned that he had put the eggplants in brine to “sweeten” them..I asked him why and he said that only when eggplants are sweet does their full flavour and aroma come out…. I disagree as I like  the contrast between the light bitterness of the eggplant with the sweetness of the béchamel sauce and also a mutual friend mentioned to him that was the best thing about the dish (the contrast). I understand his reasoning though. Bitterness is difficult and needs getting used to, in your mind and your tastebuds. Because we can train our tastebuds to like something we didn’t care for in the past.

I have some interesting links about bitterness here and here and also a wonderful book from a Canadian woman chef that I adore….

Let’s talk about the recipe now. As summery, easy and quick as it gets to make. The cocao, however odd that may seem, shows off the other tastes and the light bitterness from the eggplants which when brought together sing!

It’s a recipe you should try as it encapsulates the taste of summer in one bite!

Try the type of pasta I have used, fusilli, or any other type which has a large surface area in a small space as it helps the sauce to cling to the pasta and makes the final dish tastier.

Kali Orexi! Bon Appetit!

I have a video of the execution of the dish…