The fruits are berries large, oblong or round, usually black, edible after cooking. The red eggplant (Solanum aethiopicum L.) is a plant of similar appearance to the eggplant to get round but its fruit is colored deep red as a tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.), as to be mistaken for the latter. Grown mainly in Africa and Asia.

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The eggplant is native to India but even in prehistoric times was cultivated in China and other Central Asian countries. In Europe, it appears that it was not known until about 1500 years ago, the spread in Europe of names derived from Arabic and the lack of ancient Greek and Latin names indicate that the Mediterranean was taken by the Arabs in the early Middle Ages. [ 1] In Europe, the first region which has experienced the eggplant seems to have been in Andalusia, southern Spain. In Italy the eggplant is cooked from the fifteenth century.

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The eggplant, from India, was introduced by the Arabs in the early fourth century and was not a greek or latin name. The Arabs call the eggplant badingian and Italy was added in the code becoming melo melo-badingian then melangian, hence the current name. In other parts of the code was petroleum, so we had pedro-badingian from which will form petronciano petonciano or, more synonymous with what is indicated quest’ortaggio. The name eggplant, in particular, was interpreted as apple does not sound, because it is not edible unless cooked.

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The raw eggplant has an unpleasant taste and is also toxic because they contain solanine. Therefore, the eggplant is eaten only cooked. On the other hand, the eggplant has a very good ability to absorb dietary fat, including oil, allowing the preparation of dishes very rich and tasty. The eggplant, native to subtropical climates, requires not excessively cold climates. The growth, however, stops when the temperature drops below 12 ° C. The average yield is about 25 t / ha.

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