Finally, the autumn has arrived. Although the heat will linger for a while, cool breezes are not that far away.

Liqiu, or the start of autumn, the 13th of the 24 solar terms in the Chinese lunar calendar, fell on Aug 7 this year.

The so-called “bitter summer”, which is said to diminish appetites for many, has finally come to an end. Chinese people would always love to eat something meaty and nutritious. For vegetarians, one of the best dishes involve the eggplant.

The Chinese have an old saying: “Sow the eggplants when the start of summer comes, and eat them at the start of autumn.”

The beginning of autumn is just the right time to eat eggplants.

Fresh and tender eggplants are plentiful in China at this time, either on shop shelves or in the trolleys of street vendors.

Chinese eggplant tastes sweet but its flavours can be easily seasoned by various kinds of sauces. So there are quite a number of diversified ways of cooking it but the easiest and most popular dish is “steamed eggplants”.

The original recipe was written down by essayist Yuan Mei of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) in his book Recipes from Sui Garden in which he set out two ways of cooking eggplants.

One way is to steam them until they are soft enough to be cut into pieces and then season with sesame oil, vinegar and salt before serving.

Most Chinese families still have it on the table at the beginning of autumn, with only minor changes to the recipe, for instance, by slicing the eggplants before steaming. And the sauces are different across the country.

In many areas, people also put peppers and garlic in the sauce to spice it up a bit.

Fried eggplant with seasonal vegetables is also a tasty option for vegetarians. For meat eaters, the choices are even greater.

There are many ways of cooking eggplants in Chinese ancient essays and novels. The most famous and complicated was recorded in A Dream of Red Mansions. Though the dish is not easy to replicate, it is likely to be brought up whenever people start to talk about the vegetable.

In recent years, an increasing number of people have been switching to vegetarian diets not only in China but around the globe as a healthy lifestyle choice.--China Daily

Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2018