Cabbage
Brassica
Cabbage seed packet, circa 1920's
USA; cabbage vendors, UK, 1920's
In truth, many individual veggies who fancy themselves
unique are in fact, cabbages. The wild cabbage, which
probably resembled collards, is a parent plant
with impressive offspring. Native to coastal England
and Wales, as well as the Mediterranean and the Adriatic,
this plant gave birth to cabbages, cauliflower, collards,
broccoli Brussels sprouts, kale and kohlrabi.
All of these are Brassica oleracea.
Food historian Waverly Root has pointed out that all
those vegetables were developed by farmers “encouraging
the development of one element or another already
present in the original plant.” For example,
broccoli and cauliflower were cabbage flowers urged
to new heights. Brussels sprouts were cabbage buds,
appearing where leaves met stem, persuaded to form
themselves into mini cabbages. The wild cabbage itself,
noted for the tendency of its leaves to curl up, was
exhorted to form itself into “heads.” And so on. Thus
one plant has created its own successful spin-offs.
The cabbage plant resembles a large—some
can be as wide as one foot-- green or purplish flower
stuck on a sturdy stalk. Its leaves can be flat or
wrinkled, depending on variety. On the other hand,
the harvested core or head of the plant does indeed
resemble a round cartoon human head, its large leaves
extending out in the manner of hair and a beard, or
alternatively, a sunbonnet.
A cool climate plant with a love
of moisture, the cabbage plant probably came from
coastal Northern Europe, though was no one writing
anything down about its appearance at the time. (The
Chinese had their own “Chinese cabbage” which evolved
in Asia.) It moved south and east into the Mediterranean
from its more northerly birthplace, either carried
by people or helped along by animals. Eventually cabbage
became known to the Greeks who ate it but didn’t seem
too elated about it. With the exception of Diogenes,
a Greek philosopher who is said to have lived his
long and peculiar life largely in a tub, eating
cabbage and cabbage alone.
Across Northern Europe, cabbage became
a standard veg in everyone’s pot from the fall of
the Romans up to the present day.
The earliest settlers on North America’s
eastern shores brought cabbage seeds with them—from
England, from the Netherlands, from Germany and Scandinavia.
New Netherland, the colony established by the Dutch
in about 1621, was cabbage growing country up and
down the Hudson River and into neighboring areas.
Citizens of the capital city of New Amsterdam, now
New York, which was established in 1624, ate
heartily of “speck ende kool,” pork with cabbage.
At about the same time their German neighbors in Pennsylvania
and New Jersey concocted vats of “pepper hash”—pickled
cabbage mixed with American peppers.
Wisconsin produces more cabbage for
processing than any other state in the U.S. Most processed
cabbage goes into the production of sauerkraut. Florida
is the leading state in the United States for winter
and spring production of fresh market cabbage. Under
usual conditions growers can harvest two crops of
cabbage each season, beginning in November and ending
in June. In the early 1920’s citizens of the U.S.
ate a whopping 27 pounds of cabbage per year—these
days the average per capita consumption is about nine
pounds.
Cabbages are big business,
associated with cool weather countries like Germany,
the eastern European countries such as Poland, and
Russia. But--the world leader in cabbage is China.
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