Melanzana (Italian) or Melitzana (Greek) – that is the question. Or at least it was the question through much of today, as I wrestled with making Italian eggplant Parmigiana or Greek Moussaka for my dinner.
I have loved both dishes in restaurants for decades, of course – and both cultures and cuisines, mixed with extensive travels through both countries. Having assisted with cookbooks by chefs from both places, I’ve often said I wish I were half-Greek and half-Italian, as flammable a mixture as that might be. But being French Canadian from Boston and English-Scottish-Irish from the redneck Deep South will just have to do.
For all the potential temper tantrums, a nexus of Italy and Greece is anything but wacky. For one thing, as most know from some world history class, the ancient Romans publicized themselves as being the new, improved ancient Greeks – and the older language figured in Rome’s Latin as well. Even more profound, however, is the number of population centers in southern Italy that started out as ancient Greek settlements. Sicily in particular remains more Greek (and even more Arab North African) than it is Italian. It is a function of poverty that sent Sicilians and next-door Calabrians as immigrants to the United States, thus across generations giving us what we crave, Italian American cuisine.
The cooking I did today was all about a couple thousand years of tangled history, much of it unhappy. For one thing, it began with my craving for eggplant, plain and simple. Yet eggplant was a gift to the Greeks from several centuries of occupation by the much-despised Turks. The fact that several Greek dishes enjoyed in restaurants around the world today feature eggplant must feel like a mixed blessing – much as the same Turkish domination gave paprika to the now-paprika-crazed Hungarians. We become who we are as a culture through the bad times too, not just the good.
I started out wanting to make a dinner of eggplant Parmigiana, which like veal Parmigiana and chicken Parmigiana is pretty much impossible not to like. But I kept thinking of moussaka too, arguably my favorite international Greek restaurant dish. So I asked myself: Why is that? And turns out… it’s the sliced potatoes, often layered with the eggplant. I immediately decided no law would stop me from layering in potatoes if I made a Parmigiana. It’s not traditional, not authentic, whatever that means – but it’s certain to taste good.
The question then became bechamel, my least favorite part of Greek moussaka. Yes, definitely canonical in restaurant and internet recipes. But in a way, born of the same old “Turkish problem” that supplied Greeks with eggplant in the first place. So… as recently as the 1920s, an influential chef and author named Nikolaos Tselementes decided he hated all the “Turkishness” of Greek cooking and, besides, wanted his native cuisine to be as respected as French cuisine. So he borrowed the thick, fluffy bechamel sauce from the French haute cuisine of Escoffier. Some Greek critics are even on record as hating the bechamel, insisting it makes moussaka less Greek. I’m on that team, so there would be no bechamel in my dinner.
I suppose my recipe is more Italian than Greek, though I’d be equally happy if it were the other way around. You could mix feta in with the cheeses, I suppose, but I have a pet peeve: cooks shouldn’t go around tossing feta on everything and then saying it’s suddenly Greek. Spanokopita, tiropita or even “Greek salad” have feta because it belongs. But at least to me, that doesn’t mean it belongs on everything. In the end, with a nod to Greeks, Italians and Turks, this dinner is exactly what I was craving.
EGGPLANT PARMIGIANA MOUSSAKA
You’ll go through a lot of steps to make this dish, and you’ll dirty several pots and pans. But some of that is a function, frankly, of me making things up as I went along. Feel free to get to the same places by a different route, if you are smart enough to figure out how. But I know I really liked the way this Italian-Greek hybrid turned out.
Sauce:
1 pound ground beef or lamb
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 cans diced tomatoes
1 cup dry red wine
1-2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
Salt and black pepper
Eggplant:
1 large eggplant, sliced into ¼ inch-thick rounds
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
2-3 potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
1 jar marinated artichokes, drained and chopped
1 (8-ounce) package Italian cheese blend (preferably mozzarella, provolone, asiago, parmesan, romano and fontina)
Additional Parmesan
Dried minced parsley
In a large skillet over medium-high heat, combine the ground meat with the onion and olive oil, cooking until the meat is cooked through and the onion is transparent. Add the garlic and stir for about 1 minute, being careful it doesn’t burn. Add the remaining Sauce ingredients, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer. Move on to the next steps while it does.
In another large skillet, heat some of the olive oil and fry the eggplant slices in batches just until starting to brown and soften, 5-7 minutes for both sides. Drain eggplant on paper towels. While the batches of eggplant are frying, bring a pot filled with salted water to a boil and par-cook the potatoes slices, 5-7 minutes, then drain in a colander. Let the eggplant and tomato cool.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cover the bottom of a 9 x 13 baking dish with tomato sauce, then with one layer of fried eggplant, then with more of the sauce. Sprinkle the chopped artichoke hearts over the top, followed by cheese. Add a layer of the potatoes, then more sauce, then the remaining fried eggplant. Top this with remaining sauce, remaining cheese and parsley. Add additional Parmesan, if desired. Cover with aluminum foil and bake in the oven until browned and bubbly, about 40 minutes. Remove foil and let brown about 10 minutes more. Let cool slightly before serving. Serves about 8.
