Saving this years eggplant seeds

[livinonfaith]

This year I grew a Ratnayake eggplant, a long thin cream colored one with maroon stripes. Very nice eggplant.

The first fruit in Spring was marked for seed saving. I left it on the plant until mid August, waiting for it to get soft. It never did, but did turn a lovely bright yellow with maroon stripes. Finally, I picked it and put it in my kitchen, expecting that eventually it would lose its shine and become soft.

Again, it never did. Here it is, late December and it was still bright yellow, fairly shiny, and pretty firm. I finally decided to cut the darn thing open to see what was inside, especially since it will be time to plant seeds soon.

Well there were hundreds of beautiful seeds, and they seemed to be mature, but I'm still a bit amazed at the flawless condition of the outside of the eggplant.

Is this normal?