Eggplant and Africa
1731 illustration of African preparing food, Courtesy of New York Public Library
Eggplant is indigenous to India and from there it spread throughout South East Asia. The first record of its cultivation as food goes back to fifth century China. It arrived in African cooking pots most likely through a Madagascar trade route and food market before the Middle Ages. Africans introduced eggplant to American tables in the 1700s via the Atlantic Slave trade.
