So this evening I’m at my local megamart and find that aubergine (eggplant if you prefer) are on sale. Never one to miss the chance for eggplant Parmesan I toss a few into my cart and eventually whisk towards the tills with my modest selection of supplies.
Bless the girls that work the checkout lanes. I know they must put up with all manner of humanity for long hours and little pay. When one of the young ladies finds something to grin about after my grocery treasure hunt, I’m all for a little humorous banter and the aubergines this evening were cause for grand speculation. It was also late in the day and with commerce winding down the staff tend to cluster around to see what manner of mad assortment I’ve found on their shelves this time.
“What is it?”
“It’s an aubergine, or here you call them eggplant.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of them. Do they taste like eggs?”
“Well no, I think it’s the shape, despite eggs not being black.”
“Ok (flipping through her identification guide to find the number she needs to ring them in), is that ‘eggplant’ or ‘eggplant, Asian’ or ‘eggplant, globe’… they sure have a lot of them, don’t they?”
“Indeed they do. I suspect this is just ‘eggplant’, or Italian if you have those in the list.”
“Nope, no Italian. Let’s just go with plain old ‘eggplant’, shall we?”
“Works for me. So, I’m guessing you’ve never had…”
“Hey, Glenda! (holding up my eggplant to the curious staff at the counter) Do you know what this is called?!”
(from afar, presumably Glenda) “I call it black! And what is that? Meat?”
“Wrong! (insert laughter) And it doesn’t taste like eggs either!”
The adventure of living a place devoid of any sort of culinary diversity is a never ending source of amusement. I can’t wait to see what they make of methi and tamarind next time.
