I rise my body and make my way to where it is happening. The aubergine is taken out on a chopping board, sweating and perishing as its luminous purple turns into the dirty dark green. I am excited about this.’
- Sinae Park, Metabolic Thinking
In case my aubergines go bad, I rushed them to the freezer. Two raw aubergines bagged in a semi-transparent plastic bag with a label on which signifies their weight as well as the price according to it.
I am re-encountering these long, oval, egg-shaped plants, laid on my cold, grey kitchen top, helplessly frozen yet somehow majestic in their solid and purple disposition.
Only one of them has been taken out, the other one re-bagged and put back into the freezer. I poke one side of the aubergine to check if there’s any room for penetration. There isn’t. Its rock-solid materiality seems to tell me that there is no chance of disturbing the energy of the composing centre where seeds are orderly placed.
But I want to bother it with my right index finger then let it just sweat on my wooden chopping board. A pan of cold water is brought to the electric hob and 9 is the number I start at.
As the water bubbles, I am on a mission looking for the candidates to be mingled in the same domain with the aubergine in the pan. Soy sauce, sad off-cut vegetable scraps including a stumpy bit of onion and half-cut pepper are gathered and some garlic and two-day soaked chickpeas were also acquired.
Water is enough just to cover them all. It is bubbling, so I add three spoons of soy sauce or more until I am happy with the colour, then dripping some Mirin, hoping that its engagement would help with the depth of the flavour. The vegetables roar as you insist on the 9 on your electric hob and I reduce the heat to 3.
As the aubergine gets cooked alongside its collaborators, I go to my bedroom and lie down. I guess I am tired. I am thinking about the aubergine being laid down on the bottom of the pan as the soy sauce gets sizzled down. Both of our bodies are laid on the ground of the surface so we are equally horizontal.
When the aubergine gets cooked in the pan, it develops its resistance against all the pulling and pressing from its adjacent vegetables. The house is so quiet that I hear the bubbles from the pan. As I think of this, I lift my hands and make rings with both of my index fingers and thumbs and it is hard to resist rubbing them together as if all the noises are actually from the rubbing.
I rise my body and make my way to where it is happening. The aubergine is taken out on a chopping board, sweating and perishing as its luminous purple turns into the dirty dark green. I am excited about this.
Thankfully, I have a metal chopstick to play with. I am muttering to myself, ‘I will not go easy on you’ (or was it only echoed in my head?).
I instantly realised who was a prominent winner in this battle. As the hot, scorching soy sauce water gets squeezed out from its green body, I have no choice but to step away, still holding my metal chopstick in my right hand. It is hot. The energy shifts. But I am powerless so I wait until the aubergine allows me again.
While I wait, I look for possibilities and find the steel pot. I lift two bay leaves from a little bottle and let them float. The dark concoction made with soy sauce and what came out from the bodies of vegetables intimidates, yet, I only care for the soft vibrations and ripples that the bay leaves create as they submerge and rise above the dark water. I think it makes perfect timing.
The aubergine gets sliced out into pieces as it lets me. Now thrown back into the pan all over again. This is when the chickpeas are poised to be in the pan at last. Rattling, agitated, yet becoming and reviving, fermented in the battle of victory that the aubergine achieved.
The segments of the clumsy scraps, now accumulated, huddled, ruptured, softened in the same water to be presented on a plate. Their victory is somewhat confident however wilted they seem to be. Rather, they are wilted in unison, wholly marinated in the intensified flavour, beckoning me to have a go.
Metabolic Thinking is a written and audible work inspired by Aubergine Stew that Sinae Park has made. You can find it directly from her hand-written note what she had for a week.
Sinae Park (she/her) is an illustrator based in Busan, South Korea. You can find her making coffee in her kitchen, walking around the city with her analogue headphones on. For the social, find her on Instagram.
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