I love caponata but I don’t eat it much as my family considers eggplant to be one of the seven deadly vegetables. Eggplant is a well-traveled vegetable. It apparently originated in tropical Asia and headed to the Middle East via India. Arab settlers brought it to Spain and southern Italy but no one knows exactly when. There is no record that the Greeks and Romans knew eggplant (my husband considers them lucky) but it arrived in southern Italy before explorers brought the tomato, potato and pepper from the New World.
Eggplant territory begins in Naples, or so they say. That the farther south you go, the more important it becomes to local cuisine. Caponata is a classic Sicilian dish that provides an explosion of flavors once it hits your taste buds. While there are many variations of caponata (with eggplant the main event), the dish almost always includes celery, tomatoes, capers and olives. Some recipes include raisins…not mine. The distinctive taste of caponata comes from its subtle sweet-and-sour flavor the Italians call agrodolce.
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