Eggplant

Also aubergine. Botanically a fruit, Solanum melongena, a member of the nightshade family, but most often used as a vegetable; comes in purple, green, white, lavender and pink. Cooks everywhere disagree about whether or not an eggplant should be peeled. But it's important to note that an overripe eggplant, or one that has been stored for a long time, will have a tough skin that won't soften during cooking, so it is generally a good idea to peel it. There is also disagreement about salting eggplants. Once done to rid them of their bitterness, modern farming methods have just about eliminated that problem. It's true, however, that salting eggplants before cooking will reduce the amount of oil absorbed during frying.

The first mention of its cultivation was in China in 5 BC, and it's thought to have been eaten in India long before that time. The Moors introduced the eggplant to Spain some 1,200 years ago, and it was grown in Andalusia. It's likely the Moors also introduced it to Italy and, possibly from there, to other parts of southern Europe. It was introduced to England in 1597. Eggplant's name came about through a series of misunderstandings. In the 6th century in China, it was noted that raw eggplants caused much intestinal distress, so they were named ch'ieh-pzu, meaning "poison." When eggplant reached the Mediterranean a millennium later, it became known as mala insana, or "bad egg", which may have come from melanzane, Italian for eggplant, or mela, Italian for apple. In Italy, eggplants are known as mad apples. Another possibility for the name is that the first ones to reach England were white and egg-shaped, hence the name eggplant. By the time this much-maligned fruit reached France, it was named aubergine. Traced back to the Arabic albadingen, an adaptation of the Persian badingen, "aubergine" derives ultimately from the plant's Sanskrit name, vatimgana.

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