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Gilo Eggplant Solanum Aethiopicum Ruffled Red Hmong Seeds
Packet of 50+ homegrown seeds!
Another cool variety of eggplant, this one is a little bit different.
It is a Solanum aethiopicum, not Solanum melongena the traditional supermarket ones.
These are what folks call a “bitter” type, and if you have ever cooked them up ripe and red you will soon understand why. That bitterness is said to be have medicinal effects in many cultures, and I am often specifically asked for bitter eggplant my African and SE Asian customers. Here they are folks!
The flavour of this eggplant can be minimised by eating it green and young, and adding a little salt to the sliced vegetables before cooking. The young leaves can be boiled and eaten too, but only eat a little at a time. Too leaf much can make you crook.
The leaves are very nutritious, and provided you cook them they have more nutrition by weight than the fruit themselves!
When the skin is green and the seeds are soft and white is the best time to eat the fruit in my opinion, but some folks come to relish the bitterness and let them colour up a bit. The bright red is due to the massive amounts of carotene.
Common names include Gilo, African eggplant, scarlet eggplant, bitter tomato, aubergine africaine, aubergine ecarlate, tomate amere, djakattou, nakati etiope, berenjena escarlata, pumpkin on a stick, pumpkin tree, pumpkin bush, samtawk, ornamental eggplant, Hmong eggplant, mock tomato, Chinese scarlet eggplant, khamen akhaba, bitter tomato, Ethiopian eggplant, or nakati, and it was once known as Solanum gilo.
This fella is a spineless form which is a massive bonus, and it is really quite productive.
There you have it, another rarely seem beauty!
Grown by me and the Mrs organically, no chems, no nasties, no problems!!!
