Parmigiana al Melanzane or tales of a non traveller…

I must be amongst the worst travellers in the world. It may be that I’m not really a traveller at all as I only seem to have visited hotels and not the countries themselves. Thus South Africa, America, India and the Caribbean are represented by various smart watering holes, all other knowledge of the countries having been gleaned from films, books, hearsay or guesswork. Had I been guiding the rapacious armies of Britannia there would have been no Empire except for a chain of very good hotels. That might not have been a bad thing and would certainly have reduced the bloodshed of history to more interesting culinary battles. However, this is not true of my travels in Europe. There is very little that I do not love about Italy and France, although I must admit that I have passed through life wearing blinkers and rose coloured spectacles. Nonetheless, there is no doubt in my mind that I if one was reduced to eating but one cuisine, in my case it would have to be Italian. I realise that reducing Italian food to one cuisine is foolish, but as the whole premise is foolish, does that matter?The upshot of these meanderings is that I came across a wonderful blog called Tales of Ambrosia which led me to cook a wonderful Parmigiana al Melanzane the recipe for which is on the aforementioned site. Read it , weep and then make it. It lasted for two meals, which was not enough, and the final remains were eaten with a spaghettini olio, aglio e pepperoncini.