Eggplant

From Freepedia

Eggplant

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Tracheobionta
Class:	Magnoliopsida
Subclass:	Asteridae
Order:	Solanales
Family:	Solanaceae
Genus:	Solanum
Species:	S. esculentum

Binomial name

Solanum esculentum
Drege ex Dun.

An eggplant, aubergine or brinjal is either of two species of nightshade, Solanum melongena and S. esculentum, bearing large pendulous purple or white fruit.

It orginated in India but has also been cultivated in China and Central Asian countries since prehistory. Eggplant appears to have been known to the Western world no more than about 1,500 years ago. The numerous Arabic and North African names for it, and the lack of ancient Greek and Roman names, indicate that it was carried into the Mediterranean area by the Arabs in the early Middle Ages. Melongena, part of the scientific name, was a 16th-century Arabic name for one kind of eggplant.

The raw fruit has a spongelike texture and somewhat disagreeable taste, but on cooking becomes tender and develops a rich, complex flavor. It is especially useful culinarily owing to its ability to absorb great amounts of cooking fats, making possible extraordinarily rich dishes.

Image:Aubergine.jpg

The variety that closely resembles a chicken egg in both size and shape is commonly known today as the Indian eggplant. The varieties cultivated in Europe and North America today are of similar shape but both larger and darker. A Chinese eggplant is shaped like a cucumber. Both Indian and Chinese eggplants usually have a color gradient, from white at the stem to bright purple to deep purple, but albino varieties also exist.

Although aubergine is the (British) English name given to this fruit, it is often invoked to describe other objects with a dark plum-color. This name comes from the French aubergine, derived from Catalan albergínia, from Arabic al-bAdhinjAn, from Persian بادنجان Bâdinjân, the eggplant.

The word melongena is from the Sanskrit vatinganah, which has produced a number of names for this plant in various languages: brinjal, badingan, melongena, melanzana, berenjena, albergínia, aubergine, brown-jolly, and mad-apple (misinterpretation of Italian melanzana as mela insana).