May 6, 2016 3 min read

Last weekend, I was in D.C. I went to a wonderful little Lebanese restaurant where I didn’t know how to pronounce anything on the menu. I usually point at the menu and say, “I’ll have that.”

Luckily, it was all delicious.

When dining on foreign cuisine (foreign to me, at least), I usually go for the eggplant dish. In Middle Eastern restaurants, there’s always at least one eggplant dish, and a side dish with beans. Frankly, in any Middle Eastern restaurant you’re fine as long as you like garlic.

When I was a kid, I didn’t like eggplant, mostly because of the name. It’s a hideous name and a hideous-looking vegetable. So I did my research, and by “research” I mean I looked it up on Wikipedia

Side note: Dear College kids, please don’t follow my example and use Wikipedia as a research tool. You might believe British pop star Robbie Williams eats domestic pets in pubs for money, or that David Beckham was a Chinese goalkeeper in the 18th century, or Conan O’Brien assaulted sea turtles while canoeing (all misrepresented “truths” formerly on Wikipedia).

But I digress, like I do. The eggplant is not a vegetable. It’s a fruit. Who knew? It’s a nightshade, like the tomato. None of this mattered to me. I just wanted to know where they got their hideous appellation. I couldn’t understand why the elongated, purple, squash-shaped thing was called eggplant in the first place. Then, I did learn they come in an off-white shade, and some little white ones sort of looked like eggs, and it began to click.

I learned you can call an eggplant an aubergine. It sounds much more exotic that way. Though, it means “Benson” actor Rene Auberjonois is really Rene Eggplant, but nobody remembers the eggplant-named actor. He was the original Father Mulcahy in the movie version of “M*A*S*H.,” and he played some no-nosed alien on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” which always sounded like a porn parody of the famous Sci-Fi show.

Meanwhile, back in the Lebanese restaurant, I ordered m’saka, which sounds a lot like moussaka, but is very different. M’saka is a cold eggplant dish with chickpeas, tomatoes and garlic.

Before you say, “Cold eggplant! That’s disgusting!” I want you to know that I was thinking the exact same thing when it came to the table. However, I could have licked the plate clean. Unfortunately, I decided some time ago that I shouldn’t behave like a small, feral child in a restaurant. Well, at least, not any more.

My point, and I really do have one, is that I think we should rename the eggplant. I think kids would eat it if we called it something more fun. We call a citrus fruit an orange, why can’t we call an eggplant a purple?

“I’ll have some purple sautéed with tomatoes and garlic, please.”

I think this could work. I know a lot of kids who would eat something called purple but would not try anything called eggplant. I just want kids to eat their vegetables, even when they’re really fruits.