parmigiana di melanzane Recipe

A parmigiana may well be my very favorite dish of all time! Nonna Angelina's was to die for. It's one of those childhood culinary memories that marks you for life.

Her version was very much like this, only she dipped the eggplant slices in flour and egg, which a friend from Naples told me was typical of her area (near Benevento). It makes the dish, if anything, a bit more caloric, but sooooo good... :)

When I first posted her recipe on my blog, by the way, I got a rather irate comment from a Sicilian claiming that the dish was Sicilian, not Neapolitan, was therefore never to be made with mozzarella, and the name was a bastardization of the term 'parmiciana' a reference to the look of the dish, overlapping slices of eggplant supposedly resembling a 'persiana', etc....

Anyway, it's a dish that inspires deep feelings!

Parmigiana di Melanzane is part of my life long favorite dishes. But it also brings back wonderful memories because when we all headed down to Cape Cod for the summer when I was kid (no major highways then it took hours) we always stopped for a picnic. Parimgiana di Melanzane was always part of our outdoor meal. Well what can I say my family came from Italy and our picnics were all Italian dishes. Love it! but never order it in a restaurant. I would only eat it if I made it or someone I know made it. This is one dish that has gotten really overdone and distroyed.