In the 1800s, there were two varieties of eggplant – white and purple. I’ve never seen a white eggplant, which is round rather than oblong. I’ve always wondered where the purple eggplant we see in stores got its name.

Eggplant was definitely a seasonal vegetable since it was so tender, it couldn’t be stored. I’ve never come across any information that it was pickled or dried. One recipe, though, said that eggplant is sometimes eaten at dinner, but generally at breakfast.

Click here to read the Fascinating History of Eggplant in the United States

INFORMATION BELOW COMPILED FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS

STEWED EGGPLANT 
Cut in half with the skin on, then soak in vinegar to extract the bitter taste, say half an hour. Boil till quite tender, scrape out the pulp and mix with bread crumbs, butter, cayenne pepper and salt. Fill the skins with this mixture, ay them open in your baking pan with a little water in the bottom, put them in the oven and baste them often so that they will not be dry. Rub a little flour and butter together for the gravy.

STEWED EGGPLANT No. 2
The purple eggplants are better than the white ones. Put them whole into a pot with plenty of water and simmer them till quite tender. Then take them out, drain them, and (having peeled off the skins) cut them up, and mash them smooth in a deep dish. Mix with them some grated bread, some powdered sweet marjoram, and a large piece of butter, adding a few pounded cloves. Grate a layer of bread over the top, and put the dish into the oven and brown it. You must send it to table in the same dish. Eggplant is sometimes eaten at dinner, but generally at breakfast.

RAGOUT OF EGGPLANT
Boil a small eggplant until tender. Peel it thinly and set aside to get cold. Cut in slices an inch thick and cover the bottom of a baking dish with them. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a saucepan and stir into it two tablespoons of fresh mushrooms, a teaspoon of parsley, and a teaspoon of onion, all chopped very fine. Season with salt and pepper and pour over the eggplant. When it is time to put it in the oven, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and fine breadcrumbs and dot with small lumps of butter. Bake until brown in a quick oven. Serve in the dish in which it is baked with the following sauce in a sauce boat.

Sauce ~ Boil the skins and stems of some mushrooms in a cup of water. While they are cooking, brown together in a spider* a tablespoon of butter, a tablespoon of flour, and a small slice of onion cut very fine. Strain the mushroom skins and stems and add the water they were cooked in to the browned butter and flour. When the sauce is thick and smooth, pour it into a saucepan and add a tablespoon of mushrooms, one small cucumber pickle and two large olives, all chopped very fine. Let all simmer together for a few minutes, season to taste with salt and pepper. If the sauce is too thick, add a little water. It should be like thick cream.

*spider – a skillet with a flat bottom, straiwoght shallow sides, a short handle and three legs. It was high enough to stand above hot coals pulled out from the fire.

BAKED EGGPLANT
Boil them ten minutes, then cut them in half and take out the seeds. Fill them with a stuffing of crumbs of bread, seasoned with butter, pepper, salt, the yolk of an egg, and if you choose, the juice of a tomato. Close them and tie each one with a string. Put a little water in the dutch-oven and lay them in with some of the stuffing on the top. Let them cook slowly half an hour, basting them with butter. Take them out, thicken the gravy, and pour it over them on the dish.

BAKED EGGPLANT No. 2
Prepare several fine large unblemished egg-plants by scooping out the inside or pulp with a spoon, leaving the rind standing. To do this you must cut off very nicely and evenly a round piece from the top, (afterwards to be tied on again.) 

Make a sufficient quantity of forcemeat* or stuffing of soaked bread, pressed and dried slightly; fresh butter; minced sweet marjoram leaves; a little pepper and salt; some powdered mace, and the yellow rind of a lemon grated off very fine. Mix all these with the pulp or inside of the egg-plant. When thoroughly mixed, stuff with it the rind or outside into a perfectly round shape, and with a packthread tie on the top-piece which was cut off. 

Put the eggplants into a dish, the bottom covered with thin slices of cold ham. Bake them for an hour or more, and then send them to table whole, with the slices of ham laid round on the dish. Remove the strings.

*forcemeat – a mixture of ground raw or cooked meat, poultry or fish, mixed with vegetables, bread crumbs and spices or seasonings.

FRIED EGGPLANT
The egg plant is sometimes stewed, and sometimes baked, but there is no other mode so good as frying. Take a large fine egg-plant, and see that there are no blemishes about it. Having cut it into thin round slices, (without paring off the skin,) sprinkle between the slices a very little salt and pepper, cover them with a plate, and let them rest an hour more. Then wipe the pieces dry. Have some beaten egg in one deep plate, and some bread-crumbs, finely grated, in another. Dip each slice of egg-plant first into the beaten egg, and then into the bread-crumbs, and fry them brown in a pan full of boiling lard, or else lard and fresh butter mixed in equal quantities. They will be much better if each slice is dipped twice in the egg, and twice in the crumbs. Take them out with a perforated skimmer, and drain them well. They should be fried brown on both sides. If underdone, and left greenish or whitish, they have a raw bitter taste.

They may be fried very plainly simply dredged with flour, and then put into a pan with plenty of boiling lard, the lard drained well from each slice when it is done. 

STUFFED EGGPLANT
Parboil* them to take off their bitterness. Then slit each one down the side and extract the seeds. Have ready a stuffing made of grated bread-crumbs, butter, minced sweet herbs, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and beaten yolk of egg. Fill with it the cavity from whence you took the seeds, and bake the egg plants in a Dutch oven. Serve them up with a made gravy poured into the dish.

*parboil – to partly cook food by boiling.
*Dutch oven – a large, heavy cooking pot with a lid serving as a simple oven, heated by being placed under or next to hot coals.

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