Word of the day – aubergine

I’m not sure when aubergines first made their appearance in British greengrocer’s, the late 60’s? The 70’s? I’m not sure. I know that I was entranced by their gorgeous appearance, but disappointed when I tried to cook them… a revelation came in about 1979 or 1980 when I went to Crete and our favourite little bar seemed to know a hundred and one ways to render them utterly delicious and I have loved them ever since.

It is technically a berry, very distantly related to potatoes and tomatoes, of the solanus, nightshade family. Does this mean they are related to deadly nightshade, belladonna? I don’t know. They  originated from south-east Asia – where so many good things come from! It comes in all shapes and sizes, from teeny-weeny tiny, to whale-scale! They are called eggplants in North America… um, why? I know them as brinjal because I came across them in Indian food before I met them raw and splendid in their fine and swanky uncooked form.

The  English name of this fruit comes from  the French word, and I thought was derived from ‘auberge’ – inn, and I imagined old French ladies cooking a lovely stew to greet weary travellers, but no, I was wrong. It comes from a Spanish word which was Frenchified into aubergine. One thing I leant from my research, an old English name for aubegine is mad-apple which is an Anglicised form of a very old Greek word!

Just thinking about them makes me want to eat one… mmmm, parmigiana di melanzane