Funghetti di Melanzane

Here’s a wonderful dish based entirely on Italian imagination. It got its name and its inspiration from the Italians’ passion for mushrooms. When there are none to be found, they invent whatever they can to re-create the tastes of the funghi from their hillsides. The dish, which I learned from Giuseppina Peppino De Lorenzi in Lequile just beyond Lecce, is every bit as simple and tasty as it appears.