Traditional pickled eggplant

(Baonghean) - Pickled eggplant is a familiar folk dish for people from rural areas to cities, especially in the meals of people in Nghe An province, there is always a plate of pickled eggplant...

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Pickled eggplant is delicious, inexpensive, and easy to make. There are many types of eggplant, but the best is the small, marble-sized variety, which is crunchy and has a rich, sour taste. There's also a slightly larger, oval-shaped variety with a slightly thicker skin that pops like firecrackers when bitten into, hence the name "firecracker eggplant." Both types of eggplant are readily available throughout Nghe An province, but Nghi Loc district is where they are most widely grown and are considered superior to those from other regions.

The way people in Nghe An pickle eggplant is different from how it's pickled elsewhere. After harvesting, they select the small, white eggplants and dry them until they wilt. Once the eggplants have lost some of their moisture and become soft, they wash them, drain them, and sprinkle them with a little salt, mixing well. Then they put everything into a ceramic jar, pour cooled boiled water over them until almost completely submerged, and add some crushed garlic. Finally, they place a plate or a round bamboo rack over the top and press down with a heavy stone to keep the eggplant from floating to the surface. They leave it like that for a week, and then they can gradually take it out to eat. The longer it's left, the better it tastes, but if left too long, the eggplant becomes too sour and inedible. So they add a lot of salt, making the eggplant extremely salty, flattened, and no longer round like freshly pickled eggplant. It's like compressed eggplant, similar to the large-fruited "bat" eggplant, and the way it's eaten also changes. Compressed eggplant is only eaten year-round, becoming a "field" food reserve for long-term consumption, stockpiled to prepare for rainy seasons when green vegetables are scarce. In most farming families in Nghe An province, there's a jar of pickled eggplant. Pickled eggplant tastes as good as a feast. It's no wonder some people are addicted to it. There's even a rather interesting anecdote about pickled eggplant. Pickled eggplant isn't just a simple dish that Vietnamese people love; even Westerners are fascinated by it...

This shows just how appealing and convincing traditional Vietnamese cuisine truly is to people of all ages, including foreigners, because pickled eggplant has long been a favorite among many. Those far from home sometimes intensely miss a bowl of crab soup with pickled eggplant. That's when the love for our homeland, Nghe An, awakens, stirring our emotions.

TB

(Synthetic)