The ones on the right look fine.

They look way over-ripe to me, especially the one on the left. Other people's preferences may differ, but I eat mine before they become seedy. The flavour is milder and not bitter.

They look fine to me, and not over-ripe. Eggplant slices do discolor after being sliced; you can reduce this with a little diluted lemon juice. You're good to go for parmigiana. No need to peel them, by the way. Many recipes call for sprinkling salt on eggplant slices and letting them sit for a little while to rid them of their juices (which some people find bitter), then rinsing before cooking. If an eggplant is nice and firm and not discolored, it's good to eat.

Hi jeff_leites,

I grow eggplant every year and I don't have what you have in your photos. I don't have holes or empty pockets insdie my eggplant slices. I pick my eggplant fruit before it gets very mature because I like the mild flavor. I like my interior to be almost seedless -- yes there are seeds but they are so immature that you can just barely see them. As long as the skin is shiny it is young but when the skin begins to look dull then the fruit is more mature -and- I call it over-ripe for my taste. My eggplant don't need salting because they are not bitter.

DL

Hi Jeff, what variety did you grow? I grow Asian eggplants and mine are similar to what DancingLemons' (similar to the one on the right, but with no holes). When sliced open, the inside is all smooth with very tiny seeds. Try harvest your eggplants a little younger and see if they still look like these.

But the one on the left looked like peeled and oxidized. That probably affected the look a bit.

They are black beauties. The one on the left did oxidize, but it only took about 5 to 10 minutes to turn from white to the color you see. My wife said the texture was a little fuzzy, I don't know, like I said, I never see the insides of them or the ones we get in the store until they are baked and covered with tomato sauce and cheese :-) Maybe we left then on the vine too long. We don't pick them while they are hard.