Instructions: The eggplant has really tried to be our friend. But we havent made it easy.

In Europe, where eggplant took centuries to catch on after Arab traders brought it from Asia, some said it caused insanity. Others said infertility.

Still others said it promoted fertility, which suggests that there may have been something to that insanity thing.

Thomas Jefferson introduced eggplant to American shores in 1809, historians believe, and it was a hard sell here as well. Even in recent memory it has been considered a problem vegetable, bitter and tough when handled poorly, and oily when handled well.

Heavy-handed recipes such as eggplant parmesan were designed to bury eggplant, not to praise it, as Mark Antony never said. (The real quote from Shakespeares "Julius Caesar" goes something like, "I came to curry eggplant, not to braise it.") and if you were a kitchen gardener, especially in northern climates, eggplants long growing season on top of its unpopularity at table made the whole prospect hopeless.

Increasingly, though, gardeners, cooks, and chowhounds in North America are embracing the eggplant, called the aubergine in most of the rest of the English-speaking world. Enlightened palates know why its called "the poor mans meat." Eggplant flesh holds its substance through most any cooking process - the only way you cant eat it is raw - and yet it yields willingly to companion ingredients.

A well-flavored oil, even lightly applied, turns eggplant to silk on the tongue. Tomato, its distant cousin, goes with eggplant like Astaire danced with Rogers. Eggplant in a stew or vegetable medley is the middle voice that pulls the harmony together.

The worldwide sharing of cuisines has awakened many in North America to the versatility of eggplant that other cultures have long celebrated. Eggplant is commonly eaten in Asia, where, according to Waverly Roots Food it has been cultivated for some 4,000 years.

Around the Mediterranean there are cooks who claim to know 1,000 different ways to prepare eggplant. (If you must brag, better this than how many hot dogs you can eat.) Indeed, three of the best-known eggplant preparations come from this region: baba ghanoush, the garlicky-lemony dip; the meat, eggplant and bechamel casserole called moussaka; and the mother of all stuffed vegetables, imam bayildi.

The really spectacular effect comes when you put that first forkful of imam bayildi in your mouth and experience eggplant creamy with good olive oil, mellow with garlic, tart-sweet with tomato and honey. After all, we came to cook eggplant, not to gaze at it, as Mark Antony certainly never said. and if there are 1,000 ways to fix it, wed better get started.

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