You may wonder how a long, purple fruit came to be called an eggplant. It all has to do with a specific popular variety from the 18th century known for its egglike color and circular shape. Eggplants were domesticated in the Indo-Burma region as early as 300 BCE and were called vatingana — a Sanskrit word derived from vani, meaning “wind.” During the British occupation of India, English horticulturist John Abercrombie took note of a particularly common local cultivar that looked white and spherical, much like a typical bird’s egg. In 1767, he wrote about this “egg-plant” in the book Every Man His Own Gardener, denoting the first use of the term in English literature.

New Jersey harvests more eggplants than any other U.S. state.

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While China is the biggest global exporter of eggplants, New Jersey harvests the most of any U.S. state. According to a 2019 report by New Jersey’s Department of Agriculture, the state harvests an annual average of 849 acres of eggplant, ahead of California’s average of 705 acres each year.

While these white, circular eggplants have since fallen out of fashion, similar varieties including the Easter eggplant are still grown. But in general, the most widely grown type of eggplant is known for its dark purple color and elongated shape. It wasn’t until the early 19th century that a shift to this variety took place in the United States, when new eggplant seeds were brought over by immigrants from various parts of Asia. In time, those colorful eggplant varieties came to displace the once-standard pale, ovate type.

Despite the fruit’s change in appearance, the original nomenclature stuck in the United States and Canada. However, other areas have coined names of their own. In the United Kingdom, the fruit is known as an aubergine (a French loanword). A brightly colored variant is referred to as a garden egg throughout parts of Africa and the Caribbean. And around the 16th century in Europe, eggplants were also briefly called mad apples, a name inspired by the fact that they’re members of the nightshade family and thus were once believed to be poisonous if eaten.

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Most fruits tend to have sweet smells that delight our olfactory systems and make our mouths water. One, however, has a reputation for being so noxious that many people can’t make it past the rind to its sweet center — or even stand to be in the same room with it. The durian fruit, sometimes called the “king of fruit” in Southeast Asia (where it’s native), is so unpleasantly fragrant that it is banned from public transportation in Singapore. The spiky fruit is also often prohibited in hotels and outdoor public spaces in the region. 

Pineapples are actually berries.

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Each pineapple is made up of many berries, which develop around a single core and eventually merge. Every scale on a pineapple was once a flower.

Describing the odor associated with durians is no easy feat. Some chefs and adventurous eaters have likened it to rotten eggs, pungent cheese, or sweaty gym socks, though lovers of the fruit say the smell is worth enduring for its creamy flesh, which tastes of caramel and almonds.

Yet the unpleasant aroma can be so overwhelming that it causes confusion and complaints. On at least two occasions in Australia, the fruit’s lingering scent was powerful enough to be mistaken for a natural gas leak. And in 2018, passengers on an Indonesian flight refused to board a plane loaded with more than 2 tons of durian in the cargo hold because of the intense smell. Scientists believe durian fruit’s nauseating aroma comes from a higher-than-usual number of genes for volatile sulfur compounds, which become “turbocharged” as the fruit ripens. However, the scent has a beneficial purpose for the plants themselves: It’s likely durian fruit trees evolved to use the sour stench as a way to attract animals that dine on the fruit and spread the seeds throughout wild areas.

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