Friday, June 26, 2009

Eggplant

Today being my mother's birthday, I decided to showcase the latest of her many adventures in the vegetable garden - the eggplant/aubergine or the brinjal as it is known in India. The purple ones are the common kind - small roundish oval vegetables in India and long bottle shaped ones in the United States. *I'm not sure which shape is available in other parts of the world - if you know do comment*



The brinjal is native to India and used widely in cooking. The name 'aubergine' is in British English and can trace its roots to the name in Sanskrit and subsequently Arabic. The name 'eggplant' came about because some of the cultivars in the new world were white in color.
Now here is an interesting fact about the eggplant - it contains nicotine! Yes, not as much as a cigarette does but it has it! Wish i had known this as a child - it would certainly have helped with my futile no-eggplant-for-dinner requests.




The purple eggplants have pretty little purple flowers and the white ones have, but of course, white flowers.





2 comments:

Antara said...

Hi Arti,
I am also getting small brinjals in my kitchen garden but they are rotting after some time.What might be the reason?

A. said...

not entirely sure antara, but maybe tehy are getting too much water?