The
Thai word for
eggplant. It is applied to many things that my
farang eyes had trouble
recognizing as eggplants. In
Thailand you won't see the large
glossy purple eggplants that are more
familiar in the west. Instead, there are a
bewildering variety of other types:
- long purple ones, kind of like zucchini or courgettes, sometimes called Japanese eggplant in the west (I don't know the Thai name); gn0sis tells me there are actually two types, the smaller more rounded Japanese nasu and the longer phallic brinjal
- ma-kheua yaow: long matte green eggplants, slightly longer than the long purple ones (yaow means "long")
- ma-kheua pro: small golfball-sized eggplants that are purple, white, or green and white striped (these latter are a staple ingredient in green curry)
- ma-kheua phuang: tiny shrivelled looking pea eggplants (ditto)
- ma-euk: nasty sour hairy little things that need a shave before eating
In addition, the Thai classify tomatoes as eggplants: they call them ma-kheua thet. Thet means "foreign", so tomatoes are foreign eggplants.