Comments on: Choosing Good Eggplants (and making them into Caponata, the ultimate vegetable preserve).

By: bert nola

bert nola — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 02:34:53 +0000

Can you give me an idea how long to process? and what pressure!
Thanks,
Bert

By: Patty

Patty — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 21:06:23 +0000

Leslie, I am so happy to have found you alive and well and blogging post NY Times. I am a fan from your SF Chronicle days, and have that caponata recipe clipped and saved. Mow that I am learning to can, it sounds worth the risk.

By: leslie

leslie — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:25:41 +0000

Hi Annette,

Sorry to say I can’t tell you, because I don’t use a pressure canner – the level of canning committment at which I draw the line.

Any caponata canners out there who can enlighten us?

By: Annette

Annette — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:34:50 +0000

When using a pressure canner, how long do you process it for at at what weight? Your recipe is very similar to the one I use, but I only use black olives (not green), and use white balsamic vinegar. Other than that, it’s basically the same… YUM!

By: leslie

leslie — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:48:36 +0000

RW -

I know what you mean; in the mind – whatever its ancestry – celery doesn’t seem very Sicilian.

But in fact it’s been used there since ancient times, if you count wild celery, which grows all over the Mediterranean. Wild celery is tough and stringy and much more strongly flavored than stalk celery – think lovage to the max – so I’m sure once it stopped being medicinal it remained strictly a seasoning. Regrettably, I don’t know squat about Sicialian food traditions, so can’t say how common that seaoning is or was.

By: ruralway

ruralway — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 19:00:16 +0000

I’ve always thought that the celery part is odd because in my Sicilian mind ( my grandfather was born in Siracusa) I don’t see celery in Sicily. I’m thinking celery is native to ..well, I’m not really sure. So maybe after all, it makes sense. In my continuing serendipitous relationship with your blog, we’ve decided this is the last year we will try to grow eggplant. Others do much better at it because we don’t have the heat and until we get a greenhouse going, it is wasted hope and labor!