Eggplant

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Eggplant
Solanum melongena 24 08 2012 (1).JPG
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Asterids
Order: Solanales
Family: Solanaceae
Genus: Solanum
Species: S. melongena
Binomial name
Solanum melongena
L.
Synonyms
Solanum ovigerum Dunal
Solanum trongum Poir.
and see text
Eggplant (Solanum melongena) is a species of nightshade commonly known in Britis
h English as aubergine and also known as melongene, garden egg, or guinea squash
. It is known in South Asia, Southeast Asia and South Africa as brinjal.[1][2][3
][4] It bears a fruit of the same name (commonly either "eggplant" in American,
Australian English and sometimes Canadian English, or "aubergine" in British Eng
lish and Canadian English) that is widely used in cooking, most notably as an im
portant ingredient in dishes such as moussaka and ratatouille. As a member of th
e genus Solanum, it is related to both the tomato and the potato. It was origina
lly domesticated in India and Bangladesh from the wild nightshade, the thorn or
bitter apple, S. incanum.[5][6][7]
Contents
1 Description
2 Names and etymology
3 History
4 Cultivated varieties
5 Cooking
6 Cultivation
7 Statistics
8 Health properties
9 Allergies
10 Varieties
10.1 Genetically engineered variety
11 Synonyms
12 Gallery
13 See also
14 References
15 Further reading
16 External links
Description
The eggplant is a delicate, tropical perennial often cultivated as a tender or h
alf-hardy annual in temperate climates. It grows 40 to 150 cm (16 to 57 in) tall
, with large, coarsely lobed leaves that are 10 to 20 cm (48 in) long and 5 to 10
cm (24 in) broad. Semiwild types can grow much larger, to 225 cm (7 ft) with lar
ge leaves over 30 cm (12 in) long and 15 cm (6 in) broad. The stem is often spin
y. The flower is white to purple, with a five-lobed corolla and yellow stamens.
The egg-shaped glossy purple fruit has white flesh with a meaty texture. The cut
surface of the flesh rapidly turns brown when the fruit is cut open. On wild pl
ants, the fruit is less than 3 cm (1.2 in) in diameter, but very much larger in
cultivated forms, reaching 30 cm (12 in) or more in length.
The fruit is botanically classified as a berry and contains numerous small, soft
seeds which are edible, but have a bitter taste because they contain nicotinoid
alkaloids (being a relative of tobacco).
Names and etymology
Closeup of an eggplant flower of a long-fruited Chinese variety in Hong Kong.
Some 18th-century European cultivars were yellow or white and resembled goose or
hen's eggs, hence the name "eggplant".[8]
Many other names, some of which are superficially quite different, all derive ul
timately from a Dravidian word, with modern reflexes in Kannada Badanekayi, Telu
gu Vangakaya, Malayalam va?utina, Tamil va?utu?ai. This was borrowed into Sanskr
it and Pali as vati?ga?a, vatigama, which in turn was borrowed by Persian as bad
ingan ???????, then by Arabic as (al-)ba?injan ???????. In Albanian it is known
as patrixhan or patellxhan, both derived from Arabic.[9]
The Arabic name is the common source of almost all European names for this plant
, but through two distinct paths of transmission, with the melongene family comi
ng through the eastern Mediterranean, and the aubergine family through the weste
rn Mediterranean.
In the eastern Mediterranean, Byzantine Greek borrowed ba?injan as e??t???a melit
zna, influenced by Greek e?a??- 'black'. That form came into medieval Latin as mel
ongena, which was used in the botanical works of Tournefort and Linnaeus. Though
melongene has become obsolete in the standard English, as has the French melanj
an, it persists in the Caribbean English melongene or meloongen. The usual word
in Italian remains melanzana.[9] An alternative Italian etymology is "mela insan
a", insane apple.
Even the archaic English name mad-apple comes from the melongena family: in Ital
ian, the word melanzana was reinterpreted in Italian as mela insana, and transla
ted into English as mad apple.[10]
In the western Mediterranean, (al)-ba?injan became Spanish berenjena, Catalan as
albergnia, and Portuguese beringela. The Catalan form was borrowed by French as
aubergine, which was then borrowed into British English.[11]
In Eastern Slavic languages, such as Russian and Ukrainian, the word baklazhan i
s used, while Turkish has patlican. The Hungarian name of the plant, padlizsn, co
mes from Bulgarian ????????? or ?????????, which is in turn from Ottoman Turkish
.
In South Asian, South African, Malaysian, Singaporean, and West Indian English,
the fruit is called brinjal, from the Portuguese.[12] The Indic name baingan or
baigan is also sometimes used in South Asian English.
In Kiswahili, it is called biringanya.
History
The plant is native to the Indian Subcontinent.[5][6] It has been cultivated in
southern and eastern Asia since prehistory.[citation needed] The first known wri
tten record of the plant is found in Q mn yo sh (????), an ancient Chinese agricultu
ral treatise completed in 544.[13] The numerous Arabic and North African names f
or it, along with the lack of the ancient Greek and Roman names, indicate it was
introduced throughout the Mediterranean area by the Arabs in the early Middle A
ges. A book on agriculture by Ibn Al-Awwam in 12th century Arabic Spain describe
d how to grow aubergines.[14] There are records from later medieval Catalan and
Spanish.[15]
The aubergine is unrecorded in England until the 16th century. An English botany
book in 1597 stated:
This plant groweth in Egypt almost everywhere... bringing forth fruit of the
bigness of a great cucumber.... We have had the same in our London gardens, whe
re it hath borne flowers, but the winter approaching before the time of ripening
, it perished: nothwithstanding it came to bear fruit of the bigness of a goose
egg one extraordinary temperate year... but never to the full ripeness.[16]
Because of the plant's relationship with the Solanaceae (nightshade) family, the
fruit was at one time believed to be extremely poisonous. The flowers and leave
s can be poisonous if consumed in large quantities due to the presence of solani
ne.[17]
Cultivated varieties
Three varieties of eggplant.
Different varieties of the plant produce fruit of different size, shape, and col
or, though typically purple. The most widely cultivated varieties (cultivars) in
Europe and North America today are elongated ovoid, 1225 cm long (4 to 9 in) and
69 cm broad (2 to 4 in) in a dark purple skin.
A much wider range of shapes, sizes and colors is grown in India and elsewhere i
n Asia. Larger varieties weighing up to a kilogram (2.2 pounds) grow in the regi
on between the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, while smaller varieties are found elsew
here. Colors vary from white to yellow or green, as well as reddish-purple and d
ark purple. Some cultivars have a color gradient, from white at the stem to brig
ht pink to deep purple or even black. Green or purple cultivars in white stripin
g also exist. Chinese varieties are commonly shaped like a narrower, slightly pe
ndulous cucumber, and are sometimes called Japanese eggplants in North America.
Oval or elongated oval-shaped and black-skinned cultivars include 'Harris Specia
l Hibush', 'Burpee Hybrid', 'Black Magic', 'Classic', 'Dusky', and 'Black Beauty
'. Slim cultivars in purple-black skin include 'Little Fingers', 'Ichiban', 'Pin
gtung Long', and 'Tycoon'; in green skin, 'Louisiana Long Green' and 'Thai (Long
) Green'; in white skin, 'Dourga'. Traditional, white-skinned, egg-shaped cultiv
ars include 'Casper' and 'Easter Egg'. Bicolored cultivars with color gradient i
nclude 'Rosa Bianca', 'Violetta di Firenze', 'Bianca Smufata di Rosa' (heirloom)
, and 'Prosperosa' (heirloom). Bicolored cultivars with striping include 'Listad
a de Gandia' and 'Udumalapet'. In some parts of India, miniature varieties (most
commonly called vengan) are popular. A particular variety of green brinjal know
n as Matti gulla is grown in Matti, a village of the Udupi district in Karnataka
state.
Cooking
Melanzane alla Parmigiana, or Eggplant Parmesan.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eggplant-based food.
The raw fruit can have a somewhat bitter taste, but becomes tender when cooked a
nd develops a rich, complex flavor. Many recipes advise salting, rinsing and dra
ining of the sliced fruit (known as "degorging"), to soften it and to reduce the
amount of fat absorbed during cooking, but mainly to remove the bitterness of t
he earlier cultivars. Some modern varietiesincluding large, purple varieties comm
only imported into western Europedo not need this treatment. The fruit is capable
of absorbing large amounts of cooking fats and sauces, making for very rich dis
hes, but salting reduces the amount of oil absorbed. Eggplant, due to its textur
e and bulk, can be used as a meat substitute in vegan and vegetarian cuisine.[18
][19]
The fruit flesh is smooth, as in the related tomato. The numerous seeds are soft
and edible along with the rest of the fruit. The thin skin is also edible.
Eggplant is used in the cuisine of many countries. Eggplant is widely used in it
s native Indian cuisine, for example in sambhar, dalma (a dal preparation with v
egetables, native to Odisha), chutney, curry, and achaar. Owing to its versatile
nature and wide use in both everyday and festive Indian food, it is often descr
ibed (under the name "baingan" or "Brinjal") as the "king of vegetables". Roaste
d, skinned, mashed, mixed with onions, tomatoes and spices and then slow cooked
make the famous Indian and Pakistani dish Baingan ka Bhartha or gojju, similar t
o salata de vinete in Romania. Another version of the dish, begun-pora (eggplant
charred or burnt), is very popular in Bangladesh and the east Indian states of
Odisha and West Bengal where the pulp of the vegetable is mixed with raw chopped
shallot, green chilies, salt, fresh coriander and mustard oil. Sometimes fried
tomatoes and deep-fried potatoes are also added which is called begun bhorta. In
a dish called bharli vangi, brinjal is stuffed with ground coconut, peanuts, an
d masala, and then cooked in oil.
It is often stewed, as in the French ratatouille, or deep fried as in the Italia
n parmigiana di melanzane, the Turkish karniyarik or Turkish and Greek musakka/m
oussaka, and Middle-Eastern and South Asian dishes. Eggplants can also be batter
ed before deep-frying and served with a sauce made of tahini and tamarind. In Ir
anian cuisine, it is blended with whey as kashk e-bademjan, tomatoes as mirza gh
asemi or made into stew as khoresh-e-bademjan. It can be sliced and deep-fried,
then served with plain yogurt, (optionally) topped with a tomato and garlic sauc
e, such as in the Turkish dish patlican kizartmasi (meaning fried aubergines) or
without yogurt as in patlican saksuka. Perhaps the best-known Turkish eggplant
dishes are imam bayildi (vegetarian) and karniyarik (with minced meat).
Almagro eggplants
It may also be roasted in its skin until charred, so the pulp can be removed and
blended with other ingredients, such as lemon, tahini, and garlic, as in the Ar
ab baba ghanoush and the similar Greek melitzanosalata. In Romania a mix of roas
ted eggplant, roasted red peppers, chopped onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, carrots,
celery and spices is called zacusca in Romania or ajvar in Croatia and the Balk
ans. A Spanish dish called escalivada calls for strips of roasted aubergine, swe
et pepper, onion and tomato. In the La Mancha region of central Spain a small eg
gplant is pickled in vinegar, paprika, olive oil and red peppers. The result is
berenjena de Almagro, Ciudad Real. A Levantine specialty is Makdous, another pic
kling of eggplants, stuffed with red peppers and walnuts in olive oil.
Eggplant can be hollowed out and stuffed with meat, rice, or other fillings, and
then baked. In the Caucasus, for example, it is fried and stuffed with walnut p
aste to make nigvziani badrijani. It can also be found in Chinese cuisine, brais
ed (????), stewed (????), steamed (????), or stuffed (???).
Cultivation
Eggplants being sorted just after harvest.
In tropical and subtropical climates, eggplant can be sown directly into the gar
den. Eggplant grown in temperate climates fares better when transplanted into th
e garden after all danger of frost is passed. Seeds are typically started eight
to 10 weeks prior to the anticipated frost-free date.
Many pests and diseases which afflict other solanaceous plants, such as tomato,
pepper (capsicum), and potato, are also troublesome to eggplants. For this reaso
n, it should not be planted in areas previously occupied by its close relatives.
Four years should separate successive crops of eggplants. Common North American
pests include the potato beetles, flea beetles, aphids, and spider mites. (Adul
ts can be removed by hand, though flea beetles can be especially difficult to co
ntrol.) Good sanitation and crop rotation practices are extremely important for
controlling fungal disease, the most serious of which is Verticillium.
Spacing should be 45 cm (18 in.) to 60 cm (24 in.) between plants, depending on
cultivar, and 60 cm to 90 cm (24 to 36 in.) between rows, depending on the type
of cultivation equipment being used. Mulching will help conserve moisture and pr
event weeds and fungal diseases. The flowers are relatively unattractive to bees
and the first blossoms often do not set fruit. Hand pollination will improve th
e set of the first blossoms. Fruits are typically cut from the vine just above t
he calyx owing to the somewhat woody stems. Flowers are complete, containing bot
h female and male structures, and may be self-pollinated or cross-pollinated.[20
]
Statistics
According to FAO in 2012, production of eggplant is highly concentrated, with 90
% of output coming from five countries. China is the top producer (58% of world
output) and India is second (25%), followed by Iran, Egypt and Turkey. More than
4,000,000 acres (1,600,000 ha) are devoted to the cultivation of eggplant in th
e world.[21]
Top ten countries
with the largest production of eggplant in 2012[22]
(Tonnes)
Rank Country Production Rank Country Production
1 China 28,800,000 6 Indonesia 518,827
2 India 12,200,000 7 Iraq 460,000
3 Iran 1,300,000 8 Japan 327,400
4 Egypt 1,193,854 9 Spain 246,600
5 Turkey 799,285 10 Italy 217,690
Worldwide eggplant production.
Health properties
Eggplant, raw Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy 104 kJ (25 kcal)
Carbohydrates
5.88 g
Sugars 3.53 g
Dietary fiber 3 g
Fat
0.18 g
Protein
0.98 g
Vitamins
Thiamine (B1)
(3%)
0.039 mg
Riboflavin (B2)
(3%)
0.037 mg
Niacin (B3)
(4%)
0.649 mg
Pantothenic acid (B5)
(6%)
0.281 mg
Vitamin B6
(6%)
0.084 mg
Folate (B9)
(6%)
22 g
Vitamin C
(3%)
2.2 mg
Vitamin E
(2%)
0.3 mg
Vitamin K
(3%)
3.5 g
Trace metals
Calcium
(1%)
9 mg
Iron
(2%)
0.23 mg
Magnesium
(4%)
14 mg
Manganese
(11%)
0.232 mg
Phosphorus
(3%)
24 mg
Potassium
(5%)
229 mg
Zinc
(2%)
0.16 mg
Link to USDA Database entry
Units
g = micrograms mg = milligrams
IU = International units
Percentages are roughly approximated using US recommendations for adults.
Source: USDA Nutrient Database
Nutritionally, eggplant is low in fat, protein, and carbohydrates. It also conta
ins relatively low amounts of most important vitamins and minerals. A 1998 study
at the Institute of Biology of So Paulo State University, Brazil, found eggplant
juice to significantly reduce weight, plasma cholesterol levels, and aortic cho
lesterol content in hypercholesterolemic rabbits.[23]
The results of a 2000 study on humans suggested S. melongena infusion had a mode
st and transitory effect, no different from diet and exercise.[24]
A 2004 study at the Heart Institute of the University of So Paulo found that "egg
plant extract with orange juice is not to be considered an alternative to statin
s in reducing serum levels of cholesterol".[25]
The nicotine content of aubergines, a concentration of 0.01 mg per 100g, is low
in absolute terms, but is higher than any other edible plant. The amount of nico
tine consumed by eating eggplant may be comparable to being in the presence of a
smoker, depending on the cooking method.[26] On average, 9 kg (20 lbs) of eggpl
ant contains about the same amount of nicotine as a cigarette.
Allergies
Case reports of itchy skin or mouth, mild headache, and stomach upset after hand
ling or eating eggplant have been reported anecdotally and published in medical
journals (see also oral allergy syndrome). A 2008 study of a sample of 741 peopl
e in India, where eggplant is commonly consumed, found nearly 10% reported some
allergic symptoms after consuming eggplant, while 1.4% showed symptoms within le
ss than two hours.[27] Contact dermatitis from eggplant leaves[28] and allergy t
o eggplant flower pollen[29] have also been reported. Individuals who are atopic
(genetically predisposed to developing certain allergic hypersensitivity reacti
ons) are more likely to have a reaction to eggplant, which may be because eggpla
nt is high in histamines. A few proteins and at least one secondary metabolite h
ave been identified as potential allergens.[30] Cooking eggplant thoroughly seem
s to preclude reactions in some individuals, but at least one of the allergenic
proteins survives the cooking process.
Varieties
Solanum melongena var. esculentum common eggplant, including white varieties
, with many cultivars[31]
Solanum melongena var. depressum dwarf eggplant
Solanum melongena var. serpentium snake eggplant
Genetically engineered variety
Bt brinjal is a transgenic eggplant which has a gene from the soil bacterium Bac
illus thuringiensis inserted into it. This variety was designed to give the plan
t resistance against lepidopteran insects like the brinjal fruit and shoot borer
(Leucinodes orbonalis) and fruit borer (Helicoverpa armigera).[32]
On 9 February 2010, the Indian Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, imposed a mo
ratorium on the cultivation of Bt brinjal.[33] His decision was made after prote
st from several groups responding to regulatory approval of the cultivation of B
t brinjal in October, 2009. Ramesh stated the moratorium will last "for as long
as it is needed to establish public trust and confidence".
Synonyms
The eggplant is quite often featured in the older scientific literature under th
e junior synonyms S. ovigerum and S. trongum. Several other now-invalid names ha
ve been uniquely applied to it:[34]
Melongena ovata Mill.
Solanum album Noronha
Solanum insanum L.
Solanum longum Roxb.
Solanum melanocarpum Dunal
Solanum melongenum St.-Lag.
Solanum oviferum Salisb.
Prachi Salisb.
Segmented purple eggplant.
A number of subspecies and varieties have been named, mainly by Dikii, Dunal, an
d (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, rumph
ii, sinuatorepandum, stenoleucum, subrepandum, tongdongense, variegatum, violace
um and viride, are not considered to refer to anything more than cultivar groups
at best. On the other hand, Solanum incanum and cockroach berry (S. capsicoides
), other eggplant-like nightshades described by Linnaeus and Allioni, respective
ly, were occasionally considered eggplant varieties, but this is not correct.[34
]
The eggplant has a long history of taxonomic confusion with the scarlet and Ethi
opian eggplants, known as gilo and nakati, and described by Linnaeus as S. aethi
opicum. The eggplant was sometimes considered a variety violaceum of that specie
s. S. violaceum of de Candolle applies to Linnaeus' S. aethiopicum. There is an
actual S. violaceum, an unrelated plant described by Ortega, which used to inclu
de Dunal's S. amblymerum and was often confused with the same author's S. browni
i.[34]
Like the potato and Solanum lichtensteinii, but unlike the tomato, which then wa
s generally put in a different genus, the eggplant was also described as S. escu
lentum, in this case once more in the course of Dunal's work. He also recognized
varieties aculeatum, inerme and subinerme at that time. Similarly, H.C.F. Schuh
macher and Peter Thonning named the eggplant as S. edule, which is also a junior
synonym of sticky nightshade (S. sisymbriifolium). Scopoli's S. zeylanicum refe
rs to the eggplant, and that of Blanco to S. lasiocarpum.[34]