Salting aubergines

This has become a habit in our cooking; we were taught from an early age that this is a necessary step to draw out any bitterness. But on the odd occasion when we’ve been working with vast quantities of aubergines–too many to salt–or simply haven’t had the time, they’ve turned out fine. I’ve heard people say it’s because aubergines today have been modified to eliminate bitterness but we’ve noticed that salting still makes some difference even though modern varieties of aubergine may not be as bitter as the ones our grandmothers used to buy.