the.com/eggplant
a fruit pretending to be a vegetable, dressed in purple and quietly toxic to your gloom.
means A glossy purple-skinned fruit (botanically a berry) eaten as a vegetable, central to dishes from baba ghanoush to parmigiana.
from An English word that means exactly what it says: early cultivated varieties were small, white, and egg-shaped, so 18th-century English speakers simply called the plant the 'egg-plant.' The purple giant came later, but the name stuck. Elsewhere the same vegetable answers to 'aubergine' (French, by way of Catalan and Arabic from Sanskrit) and 'brinjal' — three names, one fruit, all tracing back to South Asia where it was first domesticated.
- botanically
- a berry, technically, and a nightshade cousin
- old name
- early English ones were white and egg-shaped
- contains nicotine
- tiny trace, far less than one cigarette
- emoji fame
- its suggestive icon nearly broke the internet
- origin
- domesticated in India over two thousand years ago
violetta di firenze — italian heirloom eggplant variety from florence, elongated purple fruit prized for risotto alla norma
japanese long eggplant — thin, dark purple asian variety used in stir-fries and miso dishes across japan and southeast asia
turkish green eggplant — pale green variety from turkey, harvested immature, used in stuffed eggplant dishes like imam baildi