and see text Eggplant (US, CA, AU, NZ, PH), aubergine (UK,[1] IE), brinjal (IN, SG, MY, ZA), or baigan (IN, GY)[2][3] is a plant species in the nightshade family Solanaceae.

Eggplant is nutritionally low in macronutrient and micronutrient content, but the capability of the fruit to absorb oils and flavors into its flesh through cooking expands its use in the culinary arts.

[14] There is no consensus about the place of origin of eggplant; the plant species has been described as native to South Asia,[15][16] where it continues to grow wild, or Africa.

The first known written record of the plant is found in Qimin Yaoshu, an ancient Chinese agricultural treatise completed in 544 CE.

[23] Unlike its popularity in Spain and limited presence in southern Italy, the eggplant remained relatively obscure in other regions of Europe until the 17th century.

An English botany book in 1597 described the madde or raging Apple: This plant groweth in Egypt almost everywhere... bringing foorth fruite of the bignes of a great Cucumber.... We have had the same in our London gardens, where it hath borne flowers, but the winter approching before the time of ripening, it perished: notwithstanding it came to beare fruite of the bignes of a goose egge one extraordinarie temperate yeere... but never to the full ripenesse.

The Hobson-Jobson dictionary comments that "probably there is no word of the kind which has undergone such extraordinary variety of modifications, whilst retaining the same meaning, as this".

[35] In al-Andalus, the Arabic word (al-)bāḏinjān was borrowed into the Romance languages in forms beginning with b- or, with the definite article included, alb-:[35] The Spanish word alberenjena was then borrowed into French, giving aubergine (along with French dialectal forms like albergine, albergaine, albergame, and belingèle).

Attested Greek forms include ματιζάνιον (matizanion, eleventh-century), μελιντζάνα (melintzana, fourteenth-century), and μελιντζάνιον (melintzanion, seventeenth-century).

[35] The Italian melanzana, through folk-etymology, was adapted to mela insana ('mad apple'): already by the thirteenth century, this name had given rise to a tradition that eggplants could cause insanity.

Larger cultivars weighing up to a kilogram (2.2 pounds) grow in the region between the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers, while smaller ones are found elsewhere.

They are often deep fried and made into dishes such as yúxiāng-qiézi ("fish fragrance eggplant")[50] or di sān xiān ("three earthen treasures").

Roasted, skinned, mashed, mixed with onions, tomatoes, and spices, and then slow cooked gives the South Asian dish baingan bharta or gojju, similar to salată de vinete in Romania.

Another version of the dish, begun-pora (eggplant charred or burnt), is very popular in Bangladesh and the east Indian states of Odisha and West Bengal where the pulp of the vegetable is mixed with raw chopped shallot, green chilies, salt, fresh coriander, and mustard oil.

In a dish from Maharashtra called bharli vangi, small brinjals are stuffed with ground coconut, peanuts, onions, tamarind, jaggery and masala spices, and then cooked in oil.

It may also be roasted in its skin until charred, so the pulp can be removed and blended with other ingredients, such as lemon, tahini, and garlic, as in the Levantine baba ghanoush, Greek melitzanosalata, Moroccan zaalouk[63] and Romanian salată de vinete.

In Andalusia, eggplant is mostly cooked thinly sliced, deep-fried in olive oil and served hot with honey (berenjenas a la Cordobesa).

In the La Mancha region of central Spain, a small eggplant is pickled in vinegar, paprika, olive oil, and red peppers.

[66] The Kitāb al-Ṭabikh, a 13th-century Andalusian cookbook, features eggplant as the main ingredient in fifteen out of its nineteen vegetable dishes, indicating its significance in the local cuisine at the time.

[66] The classic Judaeo-Spanish song "Siete modos de gizar la berendgena" lists various methods of preparing eggplant that persisted among Jews in the Ottoman Empire.

[70] In Iran, unlike places like Greece, Turkey, and North Africa, eggplant is cooked peeled and usually seasoned with cinnamon or especially turmeric.

[70] Medieval Iranian writers such as al-Razi and al-Biruni cautioned that eggplant contains harmful qualities, and it must be ripe and cooked before eating to neutralize them.

Eggplant prefers hot weather, and when grown in cold climates or in areas with low humidity, the plants languish or fail to set and produce mature fruit.

S. melongena is included on a list of low flammability plants, indicating that it is suitable for growing within a building protection zone.

Mulching helps conserve moisture and prevent weeds and fungal diseases and the plants benefit from some shade during the hottest part of the day.

[79] The potato tuber moth (Phthorimaea operculella) is an oligophagous insect that prefers to feed on plants of the family Solanaceae such as eggplants.

[84] A 2021 review indicated that possibly four interacting mechanisms may elicit an allergic response from consuming eggplant: lipid transfer protein, profilin, polyphenol oxidase, and pollen reactions.

Names for various eggplant types, such as agreste, album, divaricatum, esculentum, giganteum, globosi, inerme, insanum, leucoum, luteum, multifidum, oblongo-cylindricum, ovigera, racemiflorum, racemosum, ruber, rumphii, sinuatorepandum, stenoleucum, subrepandum, tongdongense, variegatum, violaceum, viride, are not considered to refer to anything more than cultivar groups at best.

However, Solanum incanum and cockroach berry (S. capsicoides), other eggplant-like nightshades described by Linnaeus and Allioni, respectively, were occasionally considered eggplant varieties, but this is not correct.

[89] Like the potato and S. lichtensteinii, but unlike the tomato, which then was generally put in a different genus, the eggplant was also described as S. esculentum, in this case once more in the course of Dunal's work.