Aubergine Varieties

The Western or Globe Eggplant, with its plump, elongated pear shape and shiny deep purple color, is the most popular variety in the United States. The flesh is creamy white and turns brownish gray when cooked. When the eggplant is fresh, its flavor is delicately sweet. This variety is ideal for stuffing, sautéing, baking, and grilling.

Japanese eggplant is long and slender, about 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 cm) in length and about 1 1/2-inches (3.5 cm) in diameter. Its color is usually deep purple but can sometimes be a little lighter purple with greenish patches. This variety is frequently stir-fried, grilled, sautéed, and even pickled.

EggplantChinese eggplant is also long and slender but is distinguished by its brilliant violet color and tender skin. Its flavor is sweet, making it ideal for stir-frying and grilling.

Italian Eggplant is small and round with white flesh and striking violet streaks and markings. This variety is unique because it retains its shape when cooked and is good for baking, sautéing, and grilling.

Another Italian variety, Listada de Gandia, is long and oval, and distinguished by its purple and white stripes. The skin may be slightly bitter but the flesh is firm and flavorful. It can be used for grilling, sautéing, baking, and stir-frying.

Thai eggplant is round and slightly larger than a ping pong ball. This variety is lavender with green stripes and has a tough skin, seedy interior, and strong flavor. Asians find this variety ideal for curries. Another variety of Thai eggplant, the Long Green, is light green, thin and long, with white flesh. The distinguishing quality is its almost seedless flesh, with a preponderance of seeds at the base, the blossom end.

The tiny Pea Eggplant, about the size of a grape, dresses in many colors: red, orange, purple or green. This variety grows in Southeast Asia, India, Afghanistan, Iran, and China and is usually made into hot pickles because of its bitter flavor.

Shaped like an egg, the White Egg variety has a mild sweetness, firm white flesh with tough, inedible skin. Because of its size and shape, it is often grilled or stuffed.

Also egg-shaped is the Garden Egg that has African origin and green skin. Another variety is the red-orange African Scarlet with the size and appearance of a tomato. This unique eggplant had an interesting sojourn. Food historian Stephen Facciola speculates that this variety may have traveled with the Jews from their home in Timbuktu, Mali, into Spain. Sometimes called the "tomatoes of the Jews of Constantinople," the African Scarlet might have journeyed to Constantinople when the Ladinos were forced out of Spain during the Inquisition.