The curse of the Banting case Are the Banting crowd determined to ruin cauliflower for everybody? I think so, yes. I'm so sick of cauliflower "rice" in supermarkets and restaurants that I feel positively nauseous when I spot it.I do still love cauliflower in less perverted form (only just). I love it in a curry or an English cheese sauce, or in Middle Eastern guise, roasted with cinnamon, saffron and hazelnuts. But where I do not love it, is where it appears - poor unwitting vegetable - as a pizza base. Hilarious, right? What sick mind thought this one up?Hateful as the idea is, I have to test it. Perhaps I need to be more open-minded. Perhaps the carb-free base is to be the culinary revolution of the decade: pizzerias all over Naples and Rome will be dumping their flour bags into the Arno and the Tiber, or using them as poufs for cauli-hungry crowds, realising the error of the last few hundred years. Perhaps.And so there I am, at Andiccio 24 in Greenside, Johannesburg, blushingly ordering a Banting ''pizza". Everyone else gets their starch-based creations (these, as usual at Andiccio's, are really good). Then my ''pizza" arrives.''What happened to yours?" asks my six-year-old, worried. Yes, it does look odd. The crust is deep beige - if that is a colour - and when I remove a limp slice and take a bite, an other-wordly, gelatinous leatheriness rears its head. The taste of cauliflower is so very un-pizza-y, that it makes every bite unnerving. I try, I really try, but I'm sorry, the word which best describes it is "revolting".What is it with creating substitutes? What next? Carb-free croissants? Carb-free dim sum? That would truly signal a low point in civilisation. Why not simply go for dishes whose success is not based on the starch? Banting followers, throw off your chains: I think melanzane is the way forward. A dish which was born starch-free, and is as rich and satisfying as pizza. It always contains eggplant, cheese and tomato, but there are a million versions. If you respect the basic idea, you don't even require an exact recipe.What you need for Melanzane Parmigiana:Thin layers of eggplant, shallow-fried in olive-oil until golden, drained well on kitchen paper and well salted; good mozzarella cheese in slices (not buffalo though, it releases too much water), home-made Napoletana sauce boiled down to almost porridgy thickness, Parmesan-style cheese, grated; and basil leaves.How:Layer eggplant, Napoletana and mozzarella - about two layers of each - in a baking dish, scattering torn basil leaves in middle layers but not on top. Scatter Parmesan over the top. Bake for 20 minutes at 200°C. Leave to rest and eat warm, not boiling hot...