# What is an aubergine?



## crewsk (Jan 6, 2005)

I have a pasta cookbook & some of the recipes call for aubergines. I know that it's a veggie but what is it & where can I find it? From looking at the pictures it looks kinda like an egg plant.


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## mudbug (Jan 6, 2005)

It is an eggplant, crewsk.  Just the UK/Ozzie name for it.


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## crewsk (Jan 6, 2005)

OK, I'm glad I'm not totally loosing it(that would explain why it looks like an eggplant  )! Thank you so much mudbug!


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## Ishbel (Jan 6, 2005)

Like a lot of the more exotic vegetables, we use the French name - as it was normally introduced into UK by French chefs in the 1700s and 1800s!

Aubergine is egg plant
Courgette is what I think Americans call zucchini! (I suspect it was introduced to the US by Italian immigrants, as that's the Italian name for courgettes)

Truly nations divided by a common language


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## kitchenelf (Jan 6, 2005)

lol crewsk - I remember asking this question years ago - probably about your age too!!!!!


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## crewsk (Jan 6, 2005)

Thanks Ishbel! I believe that courgettes are mentioned in this cookbook also.

Kitchenelf, it really just kinda blew my little blonde mind!  There are no pictures of it whole in the book, only sliced, diced, & cooked so it was hard to tell. I'm just glad that I know I can come here to find out stuff like this.


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## Haggis (Jan 6, 2005)

I believe eggplant is only called aubergines in the UK, over here they still go by the name eggplant.

What throws me off sometimes is people saying peppers instead of capsicum, there are so many varieties of peppers, I always need to remind myself.


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## Ishbel (Jan 7, 2005)

The Aussies may not call them aubergines, but the French definitely do, Haggis  8) 

We call capsicums - peppers!  And what US (and maybe other counties) call rutabaga, we call Swede or Swedish turnip.


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## Pam Leavy (Jan 7, 2005)

In the Netherlands Courgette is zucchini, aubergine is eggplant and paprika is the name for green/red/yellow peppers.  

Pam


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## crewsk (Jan 7, 2005)

Y'all have been so much help!!   Now for my next question. What is rocket? It looks like dandilion leaves to me.


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## chez suz (Jan 7, 2005)

Hi Crewsk..Rocket is another name for Arugala.


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## crewsk (Jan 7, 2005)

Thanks chez suz! It is another thing that's in this pasta book that really threw me.


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## Ishbel (Jan 8, 2005)

Sometimes recipe books use the French word - roquette..  I like it in salads as it has a nice, slightly bitter note.


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## buckytom (Jan 8, 2005)

i have a british gardening book that took me a while to figure out all of the different names of things across the pond, but now i use it as a reference for when i get stuck in a recipe with a strange name i don't recognize.


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## kyles (Jan 8, 2005)

I still confuse people, I am sure the locals in my village are going to by an Australian-English dictionary! The peppers thing baffles me, they'll still always be capsicums to me!!!

Whoever thought veggies could be so complicated??


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## Claire (Jan 9, 2005)

I guess I'm not the only one who buys cookbooks that aren't USA!  I'm almost as likely to use the metric measurements on my cups as the "American" side!


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## Ishbel (Jan 9, 2005)

It's the 'cups' measurements that put me off trying a lot of US recipes...  I am an unreconstructed 'Imperial measurement' sort of a woman - I can DO metric when forced (we are supposed only to buy and measure in metric in the UK - but butchers, greengrocers etc 'display' their goods in metric,but will sell in Imperial for people like me)  8)   

Modern UK recipes are all metric - so I'm using that system of measurement more and more nowadays.  But family recipes (going back nearly 300 years in some cases!) all use imperial - so I haven't bothered to 'update' them into metric.


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## kyles (Jan 9, 2005)

Not having been brought up Imperial at all I panicked coming from Oz to UK about buying stuff by weight, and was so pleased to see everything in grams and kilos, even if I am the only one at the counter ordering by grams!!!


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## Haggis (Jan 10, 2005)

Thing is when people mention rocket I don't know whether they mean the wide and long type leaved rocket or the thin, multi-frond leaved version that is called "wild rocket" here.

And don't even get me started on the whole onion issue. Three english speaking countries with countless recipes using a variety of different terms for onions...and sometimes even mixing them up in the one country.

God bless The Cook's Thesaurus probably one of my highest rated sites available on the net.


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## crewsk (Jan 10, 2005)

Y'all are great! Luckly for me, the measurements in this cookbook are listed in kilos & cups.  Thanks again for the explination of rocket & aubergine!


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## buckytom (Jan 10, 2005)

another one for zucchini, or green summer squash is cocozelle. and cippola are onions, cippoline are a special type of baby or pearl onions.


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## Ishbel (Jan 10, 2005)

We have a great Italian chef here in the UK called Antonio Carluccio - as well as restaurants, he has a wonderful shop based in Neil's Yard in London - I always try to visit the shop when in London on business.   He has the most wonderful pickled small onions - done in really wonderful spiced pickling vinegar - they are called cippolino....    Mind you, one of them and you're reaching for the breath-fresheners!

I've got a few of his cookery books, too - most of them from TV series he made in the 90s for the BBC (I think it was the BBC!)  He is a real authority on edible fungii....   a truffle and mushroom hunter, par excellence!

Here's a link http://www.carluccios.com/CarlucciosSite/pages/home/default.asp?


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