African Pea Eggplant

(African eggplant; Forest bitterberry; Brihati) This is a type of eggplant but it doesn’t produce the familiar large egg-shaped vegetables that we know in the West. Instead it bears many small edible berry-like fruits about 1cm (1/2") in diameter. It grows wild in Africa and South Asia, and is cultivated in gardens also. The berries are gathered while green well before they ripen and turn red. They are eaten raw as an appetizer in Ghana and cooked in a traditional Cameroonian soup called nkwi. The berries are also eaten cooked or raw in India. In both Africa and India the berries used fresh or dried and ground to treat high blood pressure. Grows in any fertile soil, reaching up to 1.5-2m (4-6ft). Keep back from walkways because the stems can be prickly.