Solanum melongena L. - syn.Solanum esculentum Dunal - Solanaceae - aubergine, eggplant, **Aubergine**, Eierfrucht

Herb or subsrhub, up to 60cm tall, only known in cultivation (vegetable); stems and branches minutely tomentose, sometimes with stout recurved prickles; leaves ovate to oblong-ovate, up to 18cm long, tomentose, margin sinuate-lobed; flowers andromonoecious, purplish or violet, rotate; fruit e edible berry, black, purple, pink, brown, or yellow, yellowish when mature, greatly variable, mostly more than 6 cm in diam., mesocarp thick, spongy, whitish; seeds lenticular, yellowish. \\
[[http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=200020594]]

"The raw fruit can have a somewhat bitter taste, but becomes tender when cooked and develops a rich, complex flavor... The fruit is capable of absorbing large amounts of cooking fats and sauces, making for very rich dishes, but salting reduces the amount of oil absorbed. Eggplant, due to its texture and bulk, can be used as a meat substitute in vegan and vegetarian cuisine." \\
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggplant]]

Cooked aubergine owns a very low concentration of aroma volatiles (ca 2.4μg/kg), with hydrocarbons comprise over 70% of, including 20 acyclic alkanes (mainly branched C8, 21.5%) and an aromatic hydrocarbon
(toluene, 5.6%). The monoterpene car-3-ene (3.5%) was the only compound considered to have aubergine character on odour evaluation of the (GC) separated components of the aubergine essences. \\
"A relatively large amount (ca 4.6%) of the common aroma volatile, dimethyl sulphide, was identified, but the one other sulphur-containing compound, methyl-thiophencarboxaldehyde (ca 0.9%), is very much less common. From the mass spectra, the orientation of substituents is not certain, but it is probably 5-methylthiophen-carboxaldehyde, this type of compound being quite well-known as an aroma volatile of beef." \\
[Aroma volatiles of aubergine (Solanum melongena)., MacLeod, A.J., De Troconis, N.G., Phytochemistry, Vol.22(9), 1983, 2077-2079]

"Phytochemical investigation of the eggplant extracts showed that N-caffeoylputrescine, 5-caffeoylquinic acid, and 3-acetyl-5-caffeoylquinic acid made up the bulk of total eggplant phenolics... Eggplant extract inhibition of cupric-ion mediated oxidation of low-density lipoproteins was highly correlated with the content of 5-caffeolquinic acid (R2 = 0.9124), the most abundant phenolic acid identified." \\
[Polyphenols content and antioxidant capacity of eggplant pulp., Singh, A.P., Luthria, D., Wilson, T., Vorsa, N., Singh, V., Banuelos, G.S., Pasakdee, S., Food chemistry, Vol.114(3), 2009, 955-961]

{{:solanum_melongena.jpg?500}} \\
Blanco, M., Flora de Filipinas, t.263 (1875) \\
[[http://plantgenera.org/species.php?id_species=957185]]