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Eggplant (American English, Canadian English, AU, PH), aubergine (British English, "Aubergine", Oxford English Dictionary, undated . Retrieved: 7 August 2015. Hiberno English, NZ), brinjal (BN, Indian English, SG, MY, ZA, SLE), or baigan (IN, GY) is a plant species in the Solanaceae Solanaceae. Solanum melongena is grown worldwide for its edible fruit, typically used as a vegetable in cooking.
Most commonly purple, the spongy, absorbent fruit is used in several cuisines. It is a berry by botany definition. As a member of the genus Solanum, it is related to the tomato, chili pepper, and potato, although those are of the Americas region while the eggplant is of the Eurasia region. Like the tomato, its skin and seeds can be eaten, but it is usually eaten cooked. Eggplant is nutritionally low in macronutrient and micronutrient content, but the capability of the fruit to absorb oils and flavors into its flesh through cooking expands its use in the culinary arts.
It was originally Domestication from the wild nightshade species thorn or bitter apple, Solanum incanum,Tsao and Lo in "Vegetables: Types and Biology". Handbook of Food Science, Technology, and Engineering by Yiu H. Hui (2006). CRC Press. .Doijode, S. D. (2001). Seed storage of horticultural crops (pp 157). Haworth Press: probably with two independent domestications: one in South Asia, and one in East Asia. In 2023, world production of eggplants was 61 million tonnes, with China and India combining for 85% of the total.
Eggplant grows tall, with large, coarsely lobed leaf that are long and broad. Semiwild types can grow much larger, to , with large leaves over long and broad. On wild plants, the fruit is less than in diameter
Botanically classified as a berry, the fruit contains numerous small, soft, edible that taste bitter because they contain or are covered in nicotine , like the related tobacco.
The eggplant genome has 12 chromosomes. PDF
The white, egg-shaped varieties of the eggplant's fruits are also known as garden eggs,' Eggplant (Garden Egg) ', in National Research Council of the National Academies, Lost Crops of Africa, Volume II: Vegetables (Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press, 2006), pp. 136–53. , . a term first attested in 1811.'Garden egg', in " garden, n." OED, 3rd edn (2017). The Oxford English Dictionary records that between 1797 and 1888, the name vegetable egg was also used.' Vegetable egg, n.', OED, 3rd edn (2012).
In English usage, modern names deriving from Arabic bāḏinjān include:
The Dravidian word was borrowed into the Indo-Aryan languages, giving ancient forms such as Sanskrit and Pali vātiṅ-gaṇa (alongside Sanskrit vātigama) and Prakrit vāiṃaṇa. According to the entry brinjal in the Oxford English Dictionary, the Sanskrit word vātin-gāna denoted 'the class (that removes) the wind-disorder (windy humour)': that is, vātin-gāna came to be the name for eggplants because they were thought to cure flatulence. The modern Hindustani words descending directly from the Sanskrit name are baingan and began. Oxford English Dictionary, 1st edition, 1888, s.v. ' brinjal'.
The Indic word vātiṅ-gaṇa was then borrowed into Persian language as bādingān. Persian bādingān was borrowed in turn into Arabic as bāḏinjān (or, with the definite article, al-bāḏinjān). From Arabic, the word was borrowed into European languages.
The Spanish word alberenjena was then borrowed into French, giving aubergine (along with French dialectal forms like albergine, albergaine, albergame, and belingèle). The French name was then borrowed into British English, appearing there first in the late eighteenth century.
Through the colonialism of Portugal, the Portuguese form bringella was borrowed into a variety of other languages:
Thus although Indian English brinjal ultimately originates in languages of the Indian Subcontinent, it actually came into Indian English via Portuguese.
From Greek, the word was borrowed into Italian language and medieval Latin, and onwards into French. Early forms include:
From these forms came the botanical Latin melongēna. This was used by Tournefort as a genus name in 1700, then by Carl Linnaeus as a species name in 1753. It remains in scientific use.
These forms also gave rise to the Caribbean English melongene.
The Italian melanzana, through folk-etymology, was adapted to mela insana ('mad apple'): already by the thirteenth century, this name had given rise to a tradition that eggplants could cause insanity. Translated into English as 'mad-apple', 'rage-apple', or 'raging apple', this name for eggplants is attested from 1578 and the form 'mad-apple' may still be found in Southern American English.
It has been known as 'Jew's apple', apparently in relation to a belief that the fruit was first imported to the West Indies by Jewish people."brown-jolly", in " brown, adj.", " Jews' apple" in "Jew, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2018. Accessed 23 September 2018.
Eggplant was introduced to Europe through the Iberian Peninsula, where it became a staple among Muslim and Sephardic Jews communities. (1999). 9780312198602, St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9780312198602 The presence of numerous Arabic and North African names for the vegetable, coupled with the absence of ancient Greek and Roman names, suggests that it was cultivated in the Mediterranean area by Arabs during the early Middle Ages, arriving in Spain in the 8th century. (2025). 9780415927468, Routledge. ISBN 9780415927468 A book on agriculture by Ibn Al-Awwam in 12th-century Al-Andalus described how to grow aubergines. The Book of Agriculture by Ibn Al-Awwam , translated from Arabic to French by J.-J. Clément-Mullet, year 1866, volume 2 page 236. Records exist from later medieval Catalan and Spanish,The first record of Catalan albergínia = "aubergine" is in 1328 according to the Catalan dictionary Diccionari.cat . An earlier record in Catalan is known, from the 13th century, according to the French Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales . A number of old variant spellings for the aubergine word in Romance dialects in Iberia indicate the word was borrowed from Arabic; Dictionary of Arabic and Allied Loanwords: Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Galician and Kindred Dialects , by Federico Corriente, year 2008 page 60. as well as from 14th-century Italy. p. 418 Unlike its popularity in Spain and limited presence in southern Italy, the eggplant remained relatively obscure in other regions of Europe until the 17th century.
The aubergine is unrecorded in England until the 16th century. An English botany book in 1597 described the madde or raging Apple:
The Europeans brought it to the Americas. citing Daunay M-C, Laterrot H, Janick J (2008) Iconography and History of Solanaceae: Antiquity to the 17th Century. Horticultural Reviews. Wiley, New York, pp 1–111
Because of the plant's relationship with various other Solanaceae, the fruit was at one time believed to be extremely poisonous. The flowers and leaves can be poisonous if consumed in large quantities due to the presence of solanine.
The eggplant has a special place in folklore. In 13th-century Italian traditional folklore, the eggplant can cause insanity. Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition, 2000, s.v. 'mad-apple' In 19th-century Egypt, insanity was said to be "more common and more violent" when the eggplant is in season in the summer.Edward William Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, v. 1, p. 378, footnote 1.
A much wider range of shapes, sizes, and colors is grown in India and elsewhere in Asia. Larger cultivars weighing up to a kilogram (2.2 pounds) grow in the region between the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers, while smaller ones are found elsewhere. Colors vary from white to yellow or green, as well as reddish-purple and dark purple. Some cultivars have a color gradient—white at the stem, to bright pink, deep purple or even black. Green or purple cultivars with white striping also exist. Chinese cultivars are commonly shaped like a narrower, slightly pendulous cucumber. Also, Asian cultivars of Japanese breeding are grown.
On 9 February 2010, the Environment Ministry of India imposed a moratorium on the cultivation of Bt brinjal after protests against regulatory approval of cultivated Bt brinjal in 2009, stating the moratorium would last "for as long as it is needed to establish public trust and confidence". This decision was deemed controversial, as it deviated from previous practices with other genetically modified crops in India. Bt brinjal was approved for commercial cultivation in Bangladesh in 2013.
Eggplant is used in the cuisines of many countries. Due to its texture and bulk, it is sometimes used as a meat substitute in Vegan cuisine and vegetarian cuisines. Eggplant flesh is smooth. Its numerous seeds are small, soft and edible, along with the rest of the fruit, and do not have to be removed. Its thin skin is also edible, and so it does not have to be peeled. However, the green part at the top, the calyx, does have to be removed when preparing an eggplant for cooking.
Eggplant can be steamed, stir-fried, pan fried, deep fried, barbecued, roasted, stewed, curried, or pickled. Many eggplant dishes are sauces made by mashing the cooked fruit. It can be stuffed. It is frequently, but not always, cooked with oil or fat.
In Chinese cuisine, eggplants are known as qiézi (茄子). They are often Deep frying and made into dishes such as Yuxiang-qiézi ("fish fragrance eggplant") or di sān xiān ("three earthen treasures"). Elsewhere in China, such as in Yunnan cuisine (in particular the cuisine of the Dai people) they are barbecued or roasted, then split and either eaten directly with garlic, chilli, oil and coriander, or the flesh is removed and pounded to a mash (typically with a wooden pestle and mortar) before being eaten with rice or other dishes.
In Japanese cuisine, eggplants are known as nasu or nasubi and use the Kanji as Chinese (茄子). An example of it use is in the dish hasamiyaki (挟み焼き) in which slices of eggplant are grilled and filled with a meat stuffing. Eggplants also feature in several Japanese expression and proverbs, such as akinasu wa yome ni kuwasuna (because their lack of seeds will reduce her fertility) and literally: "not even one in a thousand of one's parents' opinions or the eggplant flowers is in vain".
In Korean cuisine, eggplants are known as gaji (가지). They are steamed, Stir frying, or pan-fried and eaten as banchan (side dishes), such as namul, bokkeum, and jeon.
A Spanish dish called escalivada in Catalonia calls for strips of roasted aubergine, sweet pepper, onion, and tomato. In Andalusia, eggplant is mostly cooked thinly sliced, deep-fried in olive oil and served hot with honey ( berenjenas a la Cordobesa). In the La Mancha region of central Spain, a small eggplant is pickled in vinegar, paprika, olive oil, and red peppers. The result is berenjena of Almagro, Ciudad Real.
In the Eastern Mediterranean (including the Balkans), eggplant is prepared as dolma, i.e. hollowed out and stuffed with meat, rice, or other fillings, and then baked or braised. A Levantine specialty is makdous, another pickling of eggplants, stuffed with red peppers and walnuts in olive oil. In Georgia, eggplant is fried and stuffed with walnut paste to make nigvziani badrijani.Lim, T. K., & Lim, T. K. (2013). Solanum melongena. Edible Medicinal And Non-Medicinal Plants: Volume 6, Fruits, p. 370–372
In medieval Spain, eggplant, along with ingredients such as Swiss chard and chickpeas, was closely associated with Jews cuisine.Gardner, S. M. (2018). The Good Woman Makes the Empty Kitchen Full: the Culinary and Cultural Power of Women in the Sephardic Jewish Diaspora. Dublin Gastronomy Symposium: 2018 – Food and Power The Kitāb al-Ṭabikh, a 13th-century Andalusian cookbook, features eggplant as the main ingredient in fifteen out of its nineteen vegetable dishes, indicating its significance in the local cuisine at the time. Jewish communities in Spain prepared eggplant in various ways, including in dishes like almodrote, a casserole of eggplant and cheese. This dish and others became identifiers for Jews during their expulsion from Spain and the Inquisition, and they were carried by the expelled Jews to their new homes in the Ottoman Empire. The classic Judaeo-Spanish song " Siete modos de gizar la berendgena" lists various methods of preparing eggplant that persisted among Jews in the Ottoman Empire. Today, eggplant remains a defining ingredient of Sephardic Jewish cuisine.Tan, A. Ö., & Hosking, R. (2010). Empanadas With Turkish Delight Or Borekitas de Lokum? The Sweet-Sour Journey of Sephardic Cuisine and Ladino Language. In Food and Language. Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cooking 2009 (pp. 341).
In Iran, unlike places like Greece, Turkey, and North Africa, eggplant is cooked peeled and usually seasoned with cinnamon or especially turmeric. Most eggplant dishes are classified as nankhoreshi (eaten with bread), and they are commonly served as snacks alongside alcoholic beverages.
The 14th-century poet Boshaq At'ema refers to an early eggplant dish called burani-e badenjan: chopped eggplant sautéed with onions and turmeric, then slowly cooked, and finally mixed with yogurt. The combination of eggplant and kashk (condensed whey) is popular in Iranian cuisine; it is found in dishes like kashk o badenjan as well as aush-e kashk o badenjan (involving layers of sautéed eggplant, grilled onions, and red beans topped by kashk seasoned with turmeric). Another eggplant dish is mast o badenjan, also known as nazkhatun in Tehran, which involves eggplant, yogurt, and dried mentha. Eggplant can also be cooked in stews ( khoreshes), either with lamb ( khoresh-e badenjan) or with chicken and either unripe grapes or pomegranate juice ( mosamma-ye badenjan). Variants of ab-gusht, eshkana, fesenjan, and kuku also make use of eggplant. Some regional dishes involving eggplant include badenjan-polow, a dish mainly from Fars province and Kerman province that combines white rice with a paste of chopped sautéed eggplant, chopped meat, and spices; as well as the northern Iranian badenjan-e qasemi, a casserole using grilled eggplant, garlic, tomatoes, and eggs.
Eggplants are traditionally among the foods that get preserved and stored for winter in Iran. They are selected in the last month of summer, when they are most readily available, then peeled, and finally preserved in one of two ways. In the first way, the peeled eggplants are cut, salted, and left to "sweat" (to make them less bilious); then they are sun-dried by hanging them on a line. The dried eggplants are then rehydrated 24 hours before being cooked. In the second way, the peeled eggplants are cooked in oil, put in a copper pot, and finally covered with plenty of hot oil, "which congeals to seal them".
Medieval Iranian writers such as al-Razi and al-Biruni cautioned that eggplant contains harmful qualities, and it must be ripe and cooked before eating to neutralize them. They wrote that it could cause heat and dryness and an excess of black bile, contributing to a wide range of health problems. If the "salt" in it was removed, or it was cooked in oil or vinegar, then they wrote that eggplant gained healthy attributes. Present-day Iranian attitudes to the eggplant reflect this medical tradition's influence: the eggplant is "considered rather dangerous... a cook in Tehran will say that the poison must be taken out". People also use eggplant seeds as an expectorant to relieve asthma and catarrh.
Spacing should be between plants, depending on cultivar, and between rows, depending on the type of cultivation equipment being used. helps conserve moisture and prevent weeds and fungal diseases and the plants benefit from some shade during the hottest part of the day. Hand pollination by shaking the flowers improves the set of the first blossoms. Growers typically cut fruits from the vine just above the calyx owing to the somewhat woody stems. Flowers are complete, containing both female and male structures, and may be Self-pollination or cross-pollinated.
Many of the pests and diseases that afflict other Solanaceae plants, such as tomato, capsicum, and potato, are also troublesome to eggplants. For this reason, it should generally not be planted in areas previously occupied by its close relatives. However, since eggplants can be particularly susceptible to pests such as Whitefly, they are sometimes grown with slightly less susceptible plants, such as chili pepper, as a sacrificial trap crop. Four years should separate successive crops of eggplants to reduce pest pressure.
Common North American pests include the potato beetles, , , whiteflies, and spider mites. Good sanitation and crop rotation practices are extremely important for controlling fungal disease, the most serious of which is Verticillium.
The potato tuber moth ( Phthorimaea operculella) is an oligophagous insect that prefers to feed on plants of the family Solanaceae such as eggplants. Female P. operculella use the leaves to lay their eggs and the hatched larvae will eat away at the mesophyll of the leaf.
Several different cause little leaf of brinjal, which is agriculturally significant in South Asia. This is spread by the leafhopper Hishimonus phycitis.
| + Eggplant production | |
| 39.2 | |
| 12.8 | |
| 1.9 | |
| 0.80 | |
| 0.70 | |
| 60.8 | |
In 2023, world production of eggplants was 61 million , led by China with 64% and India with 21% of the total (table).
The browning of eggplant flesh results from the redox of polyphenols, such as the most abundant phenolic compound in the fruit, chlorogenic acid.
A 2008 study of a sample of 741 people in India, where eggplant is commonly consumed, found nearly 10% reported some allergic symptoms after consuming eggplant, with 1.4% showing symptoms within two hours. Contact dermatitis from eggplant leaves and allergy to eggplant flower pollen have also been reported.
Individuals who are atopic (genetically predisposed to developing certain allergic hypersensitivity reactions) are more likely to have a reaction to eggplant, which may be because eggplant is high in . Cooking eggplant thoroughly seems to preclude reactions in some individuals, but some of the allergenic proteins may survive the cooking process.
A number of subspecies and varieties have been named, mainly by Dikii, Dunal, and (invalidly) by Sweet. Names for various eggplant types, such as agreste, album, divaricatum, esculentum, giganteum, globosi, inerme, insanum, leucoum, luteum, multifidum, oblongo-cylindricum, ovigera, racemiflorum, racemosum, ruber, rumphii, sinuatorepandum, stenoleucum, subrepandum, tongdongense, variegatum, violaceum, viride, are not considered to refer to anything more than cultivar groups at best. However, Solanum incanum and cockroach berry ( S. capsicoides), other eggplant-like nightshades described by Carl Linnaeus and Carlo Allioni, respectively, were occasionally considered eggplant varieties, but this is not correct.
The eggplant has a long history of taxonomic confusion with the scarlet eggplant and Ethiopian eggplants ( Solanum aethiopicum), known as gilo and nakati, respectively, and described by Linnaeus as S. aethiopicum. The eggplant was sometimes considered a variety violaceum of that species. S. violaceum of de Candolle applies to Linnaeus' S. aethiopicum. An actual S. violaceum, an unrelated plant described by Ortega, included Dunal's S. amblymerum and was often confused with the same author's S. brownii.
Like the potato and S. lichtensteinii, but unlike the tomato, which then was generally put in a different genus, the eggplant was also described as S. esculentum, in this case once more in the course of Dunal's work. He also recognized the varieties aculeatum, inerme, and subinerme at that time. Similarly, H.C.F. Schuhmacher and Peter Thonning named the eggplant as Solanum edule, which is also a junior synonym of sticky nightshade ( S. sisymbriifolium). Scopoli's S. zeylanicum refers to the eggplant, and that of Blanco to S. lasiocarpum.
Taxonomy
The eggplant is quite often featured in the older scientific literature under the S. ovigerum and S. trongum. Several other names that are now invalid have been uniquely applied to it: Solanum melongena L. on Solanaceae Source : Images, specimens and a full list of scientific synonyms previously used to refer to the eggplant.
Culture
Vegetable orchestras, such as the London Vegetable Orchestra use zucchini trumpets, butternut squash trombones, pumpkin drums and aubergine castanets. Other vegetables played include carrots, , and .
See also
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