Loksum, purslane, kunlun melons ......
It is said that the eggplant, which is native to India, is shaped like an egg. When did it come to China from India? Some people say that it was introduced to China during the Eastern Han Dynasty; written between 533 and 544 A.D., "Qimin Yaojutsu" (written by Jia Siqiao of the Northern Wei Dynasty) already describes how to grow eggplants. This proves that eggplants were introduced and sown from India at least before the Northern and Southern Dynasties. However, when it was first introduced to China, eggplant was an "imported fruit and vegetable", which was very expensive at that time, and ordinary people could not eat it at all. In 328 A.D., during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Tao Kan and Wen Peak's armies met at the "Eggplant Pu" outside of Shicheng (present-day Nanjing), along the Yangtze River (see Ziji Tongjian, Volume 94, Jin Ji 16). This "Eggplant Pu" was originally a waterfront, "Ziji Tongjian" notes: "the land is suitable for growing eggplant, people more in this tree art, so the name Pu", it can be seen that this is a plantation specializing in cultivation of eggplant. However, at that time (until the Tang Dynasty) has not been widely planted, living in the Tang Dynasty, Duan Cheng style ("Youyang Miscellany Chop" author) young, with his father, Duan Wenchang went to the Jiannan Festival Ministers, in Sichuan, ate eggplants (can be seen never eaten before), I do not know the ins and outs of the eggplant, and therefore ask others:
"(Duan) Cheng style on the festival, food gazi (i.e., eggplants) I was a little bit tired of it, but I didn't know where it came from. I occasionally asked Zhang Zhou, the Minister of Public Works, about the story of sealing the eggplant, and he said, "It's an eggplant." (Youyang miscellany altar, the first collection of nineteen - grass chapter)
This shows that, even in the late Tang Dynasty, the eggplant is not popular, but at that time, it has been called "drop Su".
When it was first introduced to China, it was called "ga" (qie), and some people thought it was a herb, so they moved "ga" to "eggplant". However, here the word "eggplant" is pronounced "gamma" (qie) rather than its original sound (jia). From then on, the word "茄" has two sounds. In ancient times, jia jia was used interchangeably, but later it was written uniformly as jia jia.
The above quote "Youyang Miscellany Chopping Block", Zhang Zhou Feng told Duan Cheng style: Gazi also known as the fall of Su; Duan Cheng style asked him to fall of Su out of the dictionary, Zhang replied: the matter with the "Herbal Gleanings". Meaning: Zhang Zhoufeng said Gazi also known as Loksu from the book "Gleanings from the Materia Medica" seems to be. So, we check the "New Tang Book - Arts and Letters", know that "Gleanings from the Materia Medica" is the Sheng Tang Kaiyuan Chen Zangqi compiled; the book "Kunlun melon" article under the cloud: eggplant, a drop Su, a Kunlun melon.
After the introduction of eggplant into China, people treat it as a melon. The North and South Dynasties period of the "Qimin Yaojutsu", that is, the eggplant attached to the "Volume II - species of all colors of the melon" after. It is said that Yang Guang, Emperor Yang called purple eggplant "Kunlun purple melon". It is also known as purple because it is round, ovoid, or striped, and is mostly purple in color, so it is sometimes called purple cabbage. Naturally, this is not the purple cabbage we eat now, you can understand it as "purple vegetables".