Eggplant

An annual herb (tender perennial in the tropics), 40–150 cm tall, usually bushy with spines on stems and leaves. Leaves are large and coarsely lobed, 10–20 cm long and 5–10 cm broad. Flowers are white or purple with a five-lobed corolla and yellow anthers. The fruit is a fleshy berry, less than 3 cm across in the wild but much larger in cultivated forms; it holds many small, soft seeds and is usually purple (some cultivars white, green or striped).

The eggplant is closely related to the tomato, potato, chili pepper and the cultivated scarlet eggplant, but it originated in South India and Sri Lanka. The species was domesticated from the wild nightshade Solanum incanum, probably through two independent domestications (South Asia and East Asia), and became known to the West only around the 16th century. In 2023 world eggplant production reached about 61 million tonnes, with China and India together accounting for 85%. In Vietnam, eggplant is grilled and dipped in shrimp paste, mashed with fish sauce, stir-fried, cooked in hotpot ('cà bung') or in curries. Because its spongy flesh absorbs oil and flavours well, eggplant is prized in cooking. The fruit should be cooked, as it contains small amounts of the alkaloid solanine.