The Perfect Appetizer

In Russian, we call eggplant spread “eggplant caviar” because real caviar is expensive and brilliant and eggplant caviar is cheap and brilliant. I’ve tried tons of recipes. Some were closer to ratatouille, others were spreadable and extremely garlicky, while others still were too pepper or tomato heavy. So instead of scanning the web for countless more recipes to concoct the ideal one, I’m presenting the already existing perfect eggplant recipe in a jar.
You can eat this stuff on toast with goat cheese, on crackers, on cucumbers, as a pasta sauces or with a spoon straight out of the jar.  

It’s that perfect: creamy with a bit of chunk, perfectly sweet, roasted eggplant with a hint of garlic and a touch of spice. It’s made in Bulgaria, a country that excels in all things eggplant, trust me. This is basically the food version of a really great indie film that caught a few eyes and got purchased exclusively by, say, Fox Searchlight, so everyone can suddenly see it. Unlike the savvy indie filmmaker, this Bulgarian grandmother growing her veggies, roasting and packaging them to create this perfect product is a culinary genius we will never meet. At least we can sample her goods at every Trader Joe’s.