Eggplant: a culinary ambassador: in antiquity, eggplant earned a singular reputation for endearing itself to every country in which it was introduced: over the years it's become as important to the cuisine of Japan as that of Provence. With its mild taste and unusual, versatile texture, eggplant presented creative cooks with intriguing possibilities that are still being tested today.

AN EGG IS BORN

Food historians believe that wild eggplant first grew in India, even though the earliest writings on eggplant cultivation come from China in the fifth century BCE. From there, eggplant farming spread through all of Asia and throughout the Mediterranean. In the 8th century the Moors took eggplants to Spain; it wasn't until the 13th century that Italy first learned of them through Arab traders.

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By the 16th century, Spain and Portugal acquired a taste for eggplant, but the rest of Europe still needed convincing. As a member of the nightshade family of plants, eggplant was suspected of causing illness and insanity upon ingestion. Some presume that this fear was the inspiration for its Italian name "melanzane," from the phrase "mala insana," or "mad apple." Over the next 200 years, Southern Europeans gradually laid their misgivings to rest and welcomed the vegetable into their kitchens. Until the 20th century, however, Northern Europeans enjoyed the plant only in their gardens, for its ornamental merits.

A similar situation played out in the Western Hemisphere. In the 16th century, Spanish and Portuguese explorers introduced eggplant to the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central and South America where they flourished as a food crop. In North America, Thomas Jefferson is given sole credit for introducing eggplant as a food; many of his fellow countrymen continued to grow it mainly as an ornamental. While some sources state that culinary interest wasn't piqued until the 1900s, by the 1850s at least two cookbooks, The American Home Cook Book (1854), and Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book (1858), included basic recipes for preparing eggplant. Both books give instructions that suggest long familiarity with the vegetable. They recommend salting or soaking eggplant slices in brine to reduce bitterness, and frying them in very small quantities of butter to avoid excessive fat absorption.

Today more than four million acres of farmland around the world are dedicated to growing eggplant. As of 2006, the largest producers are China, India, Egypt, Turkey and Japan. Although the U.S. is 20th on the list, it is the world's top importer.

ONE WELL-TRAVELED WORD

While the popular belief about the Italian name "mad apple" makes sense, truth turns out to be much more complicated than fiction. The story begins in India, where the eggplant was once known as "vatingana," a Sanskrit term meaning "collection of winds." In Persian it became known as "badingan," and then "badinjan" in Arabic. Spain adopted the term as "berenjena," which is thought to be the true source of the Italian "melanzana." Over time, even Italians came to believe that the naming "mad apple" had arisen out of the eggplant's purported effects.

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In Malaysia, eggplant appeared as "berinjala." English traders brought this word to India, where it turned into the Anglo-Indian "brinjal." now a modern Indian name for eggplant. (In Hindi, it is called "baingan," a word much closer to the original "vatingana.") Meanwhile, in Europe, "al-badinjan," the Arabic word with the definite article attached, was assimilated as "alberginia" in Catalan and finally "aubergine" in French. In Britain, "aubergine" eventually replaced "eggplant," an earlier coining that most likely described the small, egg-shaped fruits produced by the first varieties brought to Northern Europe.

HANDLE WITH CARE

In the marketplace, the most common eggplant is the Western or Globe, a very large round to pear-shaped fruit with almost black, glossy skin. Other varieties often seen are the smaller violet-and-white-streaked Italian: the slim, dark purple Japanese; the long, bright purple Chinese; and the White Egg, whose white skin is generally considered too tough to eat. Heirloom eggplants may be as small as a walnut, with skins of red, orange, green, white, yellow, purple, and mixed.

All eggplants are warm-climate fruits that are susceptible to damage by cool temperatures. For this reason it's best to keep them at room temperature and use them quickly. Refrigeration is not recommended for longer than two days. Fresh eggplants should be firm and feel heavy for their size; with age, they soften and lose weight.

Eggplant presents two challenges to the cook: its bitterness, and sponge-like capacity for absorbing oil. As noted earlier, eggplant is a nightshade directly related to potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos. All contain bitter alkaloids in amounts too small to make them poisonous like their infamous cousins mandrake and deadly nightshade (belladonna). While cooking does little to reduce alkaloids, salting and rinsing has long been accepted as the best method for extracting eggplants bitterness. In reality, salting does little to reduce the bitterness, but it does draw out water. Salted eggplant is less spongy and will not absorb as much oil during cooking. For anyone interested in controlling the fat content of the final dish, it's worth taking the time to salt it. A recent Australian study found that when deep-fried, a serving of fresh eggplant absorbs about six tablespoons of oil in little more than one minute.

Unlike most vegetables, eggplant improves with long cooking whether it is baked, roasted, grilled, fried, boiled or steamed. Around the world, the variety of signature dishes based on eggplant reveal its versatility. For Nasu Dengaku, Japanese chefs broil halved eggplants and top them with a white miso mixture. In India, for Baingan Bharta, roasted eggplant flesh is mashed and simmered with tomatoes, onions and curry spices. Eggplant's sponginess is embraced in Turkey's Imam Bayildi, or "the priest fainted:" one legend suggests he lost consciousness upon learning how much olive oil was required to prepare the tomato-and-onion stuffed eggplant dish. Many Middle-Eastern nations enjoy Baba Ghanoush in which eggplant puree is combined with tahini, garlic and lemon juice. Italy's Caponata, an eggplant relish, and Eggplant Parmigiana are well-known beyond its borders, as are France's Ratatouille and Moussaka from Greece. In Spain, baby eggplants are stuffed with red peppers and pickled to create Berenjena Embuchada, a popular tapa. The creativity and ingenuity of the chefs around the world demonstrate that eggplant still has a few more starring roles to play.

"To dream of three eggplants is a sign of happiness." -MIDDLE EASTERN SAYING