趣谈“茄子”和“纽纹面包”(组图)

　　“茄子”名字起源

　　What strange connotations the eggplant has inspired! A Lebanese eggplant recipe is called baba ganousb, which means "spoiled old daddy." Eggplant is also one of the ingredients in a Turkish recipe called imam bayaldi. Translated, this means "the priest has fainted."

　　茄子这个词会令我们产生多么奇怪的联想！黎巴嫩有一道用茄子做的菜名叫baba ganousb，意思是“变质的老爸”。

　　Eggplants originated in India and were introduced to Spain in the twelfth century by the Arabs. Before the fifteenth century, the vegetable was used only for decoration, as people believed it was poisonous. In Italy, where eggplant was suspected of causing insanity, it was called mala insana, "mad apple". Later, when people had begun eating the vegetable, Europeans called it the "apple of love", for it was believed to arouse passion.

　　茄子原产于印度，十二世纪由阿拉伯人引入西班牙。15世纪之前，由于人们认为茄子有毒，所以它们仅仅被用来作装饰品。在

　　From apples we move to eggs. Why do we now call this large purple vegetable an eggplant?

　　茄子的称呼由苹果到鸡蛋，为何我们现在称这种大个的紫色蔬菜为eggplant呢？

　　As with most vegetables, there are different types of eggplant. The edible part of one variety is small and white. It was named eggplant since it looked as if it were growing eggs. Once the name was established in the middle 1700s, it was also applied to the purple vatiety.

　　和大多数蔬菜一样，茄子也分不同的种类。其中有种可食用的品种就长得小小白白的。因为看起来好像成长的鸡蛋，所以就被称为eggplant了。茄子的名字一旦在18世纪中叶确定，那么紫色的品种也就同样叫做eggplant了。