Why did this dish (first discussed in an 1844 cookbook) make the priest faint? Some say it was with pleasure, some say because of the extravagant amount of oil in it and some say because it used up every ingredient in his pantry. The story I like comes from Moveable Feasts: The History, Science and Lore of Food, where Gregory McNamee says the imam married the daughter of an olive oil seller. Every day after the wedding she made him an eggplant dish cooked in her father’s olive oil. On the thirteenth day the oil ran out and her husband collapsed in shock.

Most Turkish cooks would start this dish by frying the eggplant, but the famous Istanbul chef Şemsa Denizsel of Kantin showed me what she says is the original method—steaming the eggplants in a pot with the stuffing mixture before filling them. This makes them a lot lighter, and more delicious. With this recipe, the imam might have lasted a few more days.