What to do about seeds? when cooking
 

I picked my first two egg plants. After reading here, I picked them a little bigger than softball size. They were very seedy. I understand that would make them females. [B]Does that mean this is a female plant and will only produce females.[/B]

Any way it was very bitter, tons of seeds. Really didn't taste good at all. The wife saw on a garden cooking show on PBS to grill it instead of salting. Worked fine on a store bought earlier, but not with these.

Any suggestions?

Sounds like it was just picked too late. What variety are you growing? They come in all sizes. You want to pick it when the skin is still very glossy. It should feel heavy for it's size. If it seems light, it will probably be seedy and bitter as you have described. I pick mine before they reach full size and I never need to salt. I've heard that some people soak it in milk but I haven't needed to try that. In my own experience, the lighter skin colors are sweeter and the deeper the purple color, the stronger the flavor. This year I only grew White Beauty. It has a thick skin but I usually peel my eggplant so it's no biggie. This time of year, I usually get a whole bunch of fruit but it's smaller than it was in the summer. Keep a close eye on it and you should start getting something that tastes better soon.

You could try grilling it. That tends to add a smokey and sweet flavour to the eggplant. After grilling, scoop out the flesh. Up to you whether you want to eat the skin too. I've been known to make baba ghanouj with or without the skin. All a matter of personal preference.

Grilled before slicing sounds interesting.

I don't know the cultivar, it came from the nursery, regular American or Italian purple. I actually had one earlier that was much larger than these two. We didn't get to eat it though, I salted it in a dish and the whole thing got knocked on the floor. It was seedy also.

As far as that "female" plant thing -- that's a falicy that some dumb garden writter started many years ago and it resurfaces from time to time. I get a few customers asking about that just about every year.

ONLY a flower on a plant can be male or female. In a few cases of trees, they will only have male or female flowers so they will also be labeled male or female tho it's the flowers that make them so.

Vine crops will have 2 kinds of flowers. The male flowers stand up on a long thin "stem". The female flower will have a shorter "stem" that looks like a miniture of the fruit for that plant.

Solanacae plants, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, all have "complete" flowers with both male and female parts. That's why they aren't dependant on insects to take the pollen from the male to the female flower.

So a "fruit" can't be male or female by definition.

Carol

Just happened to come across an article today on a site called Wintersong.com (or something like that), and did a search here to see if the topic was discussed. The author claims the eggplant themselves not the plant can be female or male. They showed a pic of what they say is a female and one of a male. The "bellybutton" of the female was shaped like a slit, and the male like a circle. The female they say has many more seeds and the male has fewer seeds and is denser. And the females according to them are sometimes rounder.

Not saying I believe all this because I have no idea, but thought it was worth posting for discussion sake.

Curious if anyone here has found it to be true either in their gardens or from store bought eggplant.

In one of the other threads that came up in my search results, someone posted that they look for the slit or circle to help determine which will have fewer seeds.

And obviously picking the eggplant while still shiny and before it gets too big will help cut down on the number of seeds, as someone else mentioned in this thread.