Longfellow's 'Evangeline' doesn't mention aubergines. When Baudelaire first published 'Spleen' he too forgot the aubergine. Not one ballet by Balanchine contains a single aubergine! Even Esquire magazine neglects the shapely aubergine. Wagner was a Philistine— his operas shun aubergines. Elizabeth, the virgin queen, never dined on aubergines. I hiked the Upper Engadine and did not find one aubergine. In Rome, the Vatican's Sistine Chapel boasts no aubergines. Though Aristotle's Golden Mean should guide our use of aubergines, when I returned to New Orleans, I gorged all night on aubergines. For colds, take antihistamines. For everything else, eat aubergines. by Peter H. Desmond

art by Pat Jones