I've decided that eggplant is about the yummiest thing in the whole wide world. I could eat it every day. Jen sorta got me started on it, with this Persian stew (khoresh-e bademjan), but other forms are good too. Like eggplant parmesan. And bengan bharta. And baba ganoush. And imam bayildi.
eggplant++
aubergine++
bademjan++
baunjaun++
bengan++
(Any other names for it?)
Another disk that I enjoy that has Eggplant in it is Moussaka. I always thought that Moussaka was Greek. I'm told that it was originally Turkish, but that the Greeks, Turks, Egyptians and others make regional variations.
I guess I've only had Greek Moussaka. I can't say that I've ever been to a Turkish Restaurant, really. Been to some places that had "Middle Eastern Cuisine", which I assumed was Turkish/Lebanese/Cypriot. Maybe I'll have to seek out a Turkish restaurant the next time I'm in a city big enough to have a good one.
Moussaka and Turkish food
jdporter on 2002-06-24T14:13:24
Hmm. I dunno. I've heard it said that Turkish cuisine is a melange of those from surrounding areas; and that things that it has in common with Greek cuisine are therefore probably essentially Greek in origin. That's not to say that Turkish food isn't highly refined and excellent.
Have you ever had imam bayildi? It is, without any doubt, a true Turkish disk (as will become apparent when you learn the meaning of the name). I've had it at a Greek restaurant; it was o.k., but not spectacular. Maybe the Greeks do don't it quite right!
Where do you live? There are a few highly-rated Turkish restaurants in the WashDC area.
Re:Haven't been to any Italian restaurants lately?
vsergu on 2002-06-21T21:46:47
On second look, I shouldn't have said "from". It appears that mala insana is a corruption (like sparrowgrass for asparagus), not an origin, and melanzana is related to all the other words you list (except eggplant), with an m in place of b (which happens in Bombay/Mumbai and Burma/Myanmar also). They're all related to Sanskrit vatin-gana, some through Arabic badhinjan (and aubergine has the Arabic article al in front).Vatin-gana
jdporter on 2002-06-24T14:43:36
Thanks for the interesting info!
I've also run across the word "melijanes" in French text, where they cite it as the Greek word for eggplant. (Don't have Greek-English dictionary handy...)
Also, the (a) Spanish word for it is "berenjena", which is clearly cognative of the other forms... But what strikes me a funny is that it looks so similar to "berenj", the Persian word for rice.
Which makes me think of another Spanish/Persian connection:
narenj = naranja (sweet orange)
whereas the Persians have a different word for bitter orange -- porteghal!!!
I suppose that there is actually some connection (for narenj) through Arabic. It would certainly make sense.
Noranges
vsergu on 2002-06-25T02:52:19
English orange is related to naranja too. It's one of those cases where people get confused about whether there's an n at the end of the indefinite article or at the beginning of the following word (see etymologies of umpire, apron, adder, and others).
But it this case it looks like the disappearance of n happened in French before English borrowed the word. Something like: une narange becomes une arange becomes une orange (possibly because people connected it with or "gold").Re:Noranges
jdporter on 2002-06-25T11:51:25
Clearly.
Another one I find kind of interesting is "esfenaj", Persian for "spinach". (I should point out that "j" in transliterated Persian is pronounced as in English.) However, in this case I believe that the word was imported directly from English, in modern times. Which is bizarre, since, according to Webster:
"spinach"
< MFr. "espinach"
< (? via ML "spinachia") OSp. "espinaca"
< Ar. "ispanakh"
< Per. "aspanakh"
I tend to be a little skeptical of Webster's etymologies, and in this case I doubt the MFr connection; I think Italian ("spinaci") is far more likely. Not that it matters.:-) Mela Insana
jdporter on 2002-07-23T14:29:09
Yeah. I was doing up some eggplant on the grill last night, and, looking for something interesting to do with it, broke out Jeff Smith's Three Ancient Cuisines... He states rather blithely that the origin is mela insana, "bad apple", which supposedly ties in with the ancient (western) belief that the vegetable is poisonous.
We know, of course, that that derivation is spurious.
But it does lead to a question of what insana means. Does it mean mad or bad? (bad, in this case, not having its moral connotation, but more along the lines of rotten or unhealthy.) I would think that bad is just, if we consider the connection to sanatarium and sanitation.
Re:Mela Insana
vsergu on 2002-07-23T17:44:29
Of course sanitarium/sanitorium sometimes refers to institutions dealing with mental rather than physical health also, so it parallels the different meanings of insana.
