Eggplant

Eggplant Caviar

Eggplant Caviar

Eggplant Caviar | Feride Buyuran |AZCookbook.com

Eggplant lovers, unite! This deliciousness, known as Eggplant Caviar, from the heart of the Caucasus, will leave your wanting more and more of it after first try, because it is one of the best eggplant dishes on Earth, I dare say. It is essentially a spread, made with roasted eggplants, onions, and sometimes with tomatoes and peppers added to it (in some variations, it is just eggplants).

“Caviar from eggplant? Wait, isn’t caviar the roe of sturgeon?,” you may righteously ask. True, the real caviar does come from the sturgeon of the Caspian Sea. But because the delicacy comes with a hefty price that not everyone can afford, eggplant caviar, or “a poor man’s caviar” was born at one point in time in history. Just like with the sturgeon caviar, you would spread the eggplant caviar on a slice of bread and enjoy, plus, eggplant, too, has roe-like seeds, so, these may have contributed to the etymology of the dish, with “caviar” in the name.

When was eggplant caviar born? Unknown. Where? Believed to be somewhere in the Caucasus where eggplants are plentiful and are used in a myriad of dishes. Where exactly in the Caucasus?  Undocumented, too, although many sources claim the dish to be of Georgian origin. However, it is just as widely known in the neighboring Azerbaijan, too (which is by the Caspian Sea from where the real caviar comes), so go figure.

Eggplant Caviar | AZCookbook.com

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