It has been used as a food source by Central Australian Aboriginal groups.
Solanum centrale was first described by J. M. Black in 1934.
Like many plants of the Solanum genus, desert raisin is a small bush and has a thorny aspect.
It is a fast growing shrub.
The vitamin C-rich fruit are 1–3 cm in diameter and yellow in color when fully ripe. They dry on the bush and look like raisins. These fruits have a strong, pungent taste of tamarillo and caramel that makes them popular for use in sauces and condiments. They can be obtained either whole or ground, with the ground product easily added to bread mixes, salads, sauces, cheese dishes, chutneys, stews or mixed into butter.
Mardu people would skewer bush tomatoes and dry them so the food was readily transportable.
Traditionally, the dried fruit are collected from the small bushes in late autumn and early winter.
In the wild, they fruit for only two months. These days they are grown commercially by Aboriginal communities in the deserts of central Australia. Using irrigation, they have extended the fruiting season to eight months.