Roasted Eggplant and Lentil Soup with Cumin, Lime, Mint, and Basil

If lentils were not the first vegetable man ever ate, they certainly were an early favorite. In 1967, when William Heinemann and Harvard University Press reprinted Athenaeus: The Deipnosophists in seven volumes, I plowed through four, and on the inside cover I listed what got my attention: “grilled sturgeon belly, scotch broth, pickled turnip, fresh cheese salad, underground refrigerators, sweet chickpeas, lentil soup with parsnips.” Since I love both lentils and parsnips, I tried th