After all those new world imports*, it’s time to look to a homegrown favourite and a “passion fruit”** of another kind.
Native to South Asia, the brinjal (aubergine, baingan, eggplant or kathirikai – whatever name you know it by, I’ll stick with brinjal for now) does seems to rouse strong passions. I don’t mean its reputation in history for being considered an aphrodisiac (and a cause of madness, too, for good measure)! It’s the extremes of adoration, to active dislike, it seems to evoke in people. Quite often, gastronomic battle lines are drawn in an instant at the mere mention of it. And people display fierce loyalty to regional varieties too. One professional cook I know will not travel out of his village without arming himself with a large bagful of the locally grown variety of brinjal. He is quite forthright in his opinion that “those available in the city are worse than useless“!
The brinjal is cultivated all over India, and scores of varieties of all shapes and hues abound. Karnataka and parts of Andhra Pradesh seem to have a particular fondness for the brinjal. In an interesting account I read on the famed “Mattu Gulla” brinjal grown in Udupi, the author writes of how the reformist seer Sri Vadiraja Tirtha Swamiji is credited with introducing it to the district over 500 years ago, possibly from seeds brought from Bengal. The mattu gulla brinjal is the only variety used in dishes prepared at the Sri Krishna temple in Udupi.