Eggplant with walnuts in the oven. Xeropicta (Melitzanes me karidia) a Delicacy of the region and the city of Serres in Greek Macedonia Melitzana, Melitzana - how to live without eggplant! In Mediterranean cuisine and in Greece in particular, it boiled, fried, baked, stewed, pickled, used for the preparation of sauces and salads. Although the birthplace of eggplant — not the Mediterranean, and India. The plant is cultivated in India over 1500 years ago, as told to us by the ancient Sanskrit texts. In our days, India remains the second largest producer of eggplant in the world, first China, also made it from ancient times. But Italian and Greek cooking, which is now impossible to imagine without eggplant in many different types, I learned this vegetable thanks to the Arabs, Savassi "baingan" in the Byzantine Empire. In the Byzantine and Latin pronunciation of the word changed melongena from which they come from Italian "melanzana& amp;quot; and the Greek "melitzana" and since then, to provide Italian and Greek food without eggplant not! Source of calcium, potassium, phosphorus and iron, rich in fiber and plenty of b vitamins In a vegetable is not in vain called in the East "longevity vegetables"