Eggplant


Eggplant, aubergine, brinjal, or baigan is a plant species in the nightshade family 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 botanical 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 domesticated from the wild nightshade species thorn or bitter apple, S. incanum, probably with two independent domestications: one in South Asia, and one in East Asia. In 2023, world production of eggplants was, with China and India combining for 85% of the total.

Description

The eggplant is a delicate, tropical perennial plant often cultivated as a tender or half-hardy annual in temperate climates. The stem is often spiny. It grows tall, with large, coarsely lobed leaves that are long and broad. Semiwild types can grow much larger, to, with large leaves over long and broad.
The flowers are white to purple in color, with a five-lobed corolla and yellow stamens.
Botanically classified as a berry, the fruit contains numerous small, soft, edible seeds that taste bitter because they contain or are covered in nicotinoid alkaloids, like the related tobacco. Some common cultivars have fruit that is egg-shaped, glossy, and purple with white flesh and a spongy, "meaty" texture. Some other cultivars are white and longer in shape. Wild eggplants fruits measure less than in diameter. The fruit flesh rapidly turns brown when in contact with the oxygen in the air.

Genetics

The eggplant genome has 12 chromosomes.

Etymology and regional names

The plant and fruit have a profusion of English names.

''Eggplant''-type names

The name eggplant is usual in North American English and Australian English. First recorded in 1763, the word eggplant was originally applied to white cultivars, which look very much like hen's eggs. Similar names are widespread in other languages, such as the Icelandic term or the Welsh.
The white, egg-shaped varieties of the eggplant's fruits are also known as garden eggs, a term first attested in 1811. The Oxford English Dictionary records that between 1797 and 1888, the name vegetable egg was also used.

''Aubergine''-type names

Whereas eggplant was coined in some variations English, any other European names for the plant derive from the bāḏinjān . Bāḏinjān is itself a loan-word in Arabic, whose earliest traceable origins lie in the Dravidian languages. The Hobson-Jobson dictionary comments that "probably there is no word of the kind which has undergone such extraordinary variety of modifications, whilst retaining the same meaning, as this".
In English usage, modern names deriving from Arabic bāḏinjān include:
All the aubergine-type names have the same origin, in the Dravidian languages. Modern descendants of this ancient Dravidian word include Malayalam vaṟutina and Tamil vaṟutuṇai.
The Dravidian word was borrowed into the Indo-Aryan languages, giving ancient forms such as Sanskrit and Pali vātiṅ-gaṇa and Prakrit vāiṃaṇa. According to the entry brinjal in the Oxford English Dictionary, the Sanskrit word vātin-gāna denoted 'the class the wind-disorder ': 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.
The Indic word vātiṅ-gaṇa was then borrowed into Persian as bādingān. Persian bādingān was borrowed in turn into Arabic as bāḏinjān. From Arabic, the word was borrowed into European languages.

From Arabic into Iberia and beyond

In al-Andalus, the Arabic word bāḏinjān was borrowed into the Romance languages in forms beginning with b- or, with the definite article included, alb-:
The Spanish word alberenjena was then borrowed into French, giving aubergine. The French name was then borrowed into British English, appearing there first in the late eighteenth century.
Through the colonial expansion 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 Arabic into Greek and beyond

The Arabic word bāḏinjān was borrowed into Greek by the eleventh century CE. The Greek loans took a variety of forms, but crucially they began with m-, partly because Greek lacked the initial b- sound and partly through folk-etymological association with the Greek word μέλας, 'black'. Attested Greek forms include ματιζάνιον, μελιντζάνα, and μελιντζάνιον.
From Greek, the word was borrowed into Italian and medieval Latin, and onwards into French. Early forms include:
  • Melanzāna, recorded in Sicilian in the twelfth century.
  • Melongena, recorded in Latin in the thirteenth century.
  • Melongiana, recorded in Veronese in the fourteenth century.
  • Melanjan, recorded in Old French.
From these forms came the botanical Latin melongēna. This was used by Tournefort as a genus name in 1700, then by 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 : 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.

Other English names

The plant is also known as guinea squash in Southern American English. The term guinea in the name originally denoted the fact that the fruits were associated with West Africa, specifically the region that is now the modern day country Guinea.
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.

History

There is no consensus about the place of origin of eggplant; the plant species has been described as native to South Asia, where it continues to grow wild, or Africa. It has been cultivated in southern and eastern Asia since prehistory. The earliest known mention of the eggplant is in the 59 BCE "Slave's Contract" by Chinese poet Wang Bao ; subsequently, the plant was mentioned in other later sources such as Qimin Yaoshu, an agricultural treatise completed in 544 CE.
Eggplant was introduced to Europe through the Iberian Peninsula, where it became a staple among Muslim and Jewish communities. 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. A book on agriculture by Ibn Al-Awwam in 12th-century Muslim Spain described how to grow aubergines. Records exist from later medieval Catalan and Spanish, as well as from 14th-century Italy. 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.
Because of the plant's relationship with various other nightshades, 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. In 19th-century Egypt, insanity was said to be "more common and more violent" when the eggplant is in season in the summer.

Cultivars

Different cultivars of the plant produce fruit of different size, shape, and color, though typically purple. The less common white varieties of eggplant are also known as Easter white eggplants, garden eggs, Casper or white eggplant. The most widely cultivated varieties—cultivars—in Europe and North America today are elongated ovoid, long and broad with a dark purple skin.
A much wider range of shapes, sizes, and colors is grown in India and elsewhere in Asia. Larger cultivars weighing up to a kilogram 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.
  • Oval or elongated oval-shaped and black-skinned cultivars include 'Harris Special Hibush', 'Burpee Hybrid', 'Bringal Bloom', 'Black Magic', 'Classic', 'Dusky', and 'Black Beauty'.
  • Slim cultivars in purple-black skin include 'Little Fingers', 'Ichiban', 'Pingtung Long', and 'Tycoon'
  • * In green skin, 'Louisiana Long Green' and 'Thai Green'
  • * In white skin, 'Dourga'.
  • Traditional, white-skinned, egg-shaped cultivars include 'Casper' and 'Easter Egg'.
  • Bicolored cultivars with color gradient include 'Rosa Bianca', 'Violetta di Firenze', 'Bianca Sfumata di Rosa', and 'Prosperosa'.
  • Bicolored cultivars with striping include 'Listada de Gandia' and 'Udumalapet'.
  • In some parts of India, miniature cultivars, most commonly called baigan, are popular.