Eggplants are one of the world's most widely eaten fruit.
Originating in India and introduced to Europe more than 1500 years ago by the Moors and Arab traders, the eggplant was initially greeted with suspicion because, like tomatoes and potatoes, it belongs to nightshade family, some of whose members are poisonous. The eggplant is known as a garden egg in West Africa and aubergine in the Mediterranean, a word of Sanskrit-Arabic-Catalan-French derivation.
Eggplants vary in shape, colour and size. The most common is the large, glossy deep-purple variety but they can also be long, slender and mauve or round and white, about the size of a tennis ball. The Thais add a pea-sized green eggplant to green curries. Its mild flavour and spongy texture marries well with an international medley of dishes.
There is no need to peel young eggplants. Sometimes older fruits tend to develop thicker skins and bitter flesh. These are best peeled and the flesh salted and left to stand for 30 minutes to draw out the bitterness. Rinse in cold water and pat dry before using. Another reason to salt eggplants is that they absorb masses of oil. So for a lower-calorie dish, salting the flesh first will collapse the cell walls and less oil will be absorbed.
The most famous eggplant dish, eaten all over the Arab world, is Imam bayildi - "the priest fainted". One story claims that the priest fainted because of the deliciousness of the dish; another that he fainted when he learned how much precious olive oil his wife had used in preparing this delicacy.
