This is the story of how I overcame sprout-phobia

More Marmite than Marmite. More polarising than opposing poles. More divisive than a Scottish independence referendum. Nothing separates people more markedly than the Brussels sprout. This is the story of how I was cured of my distaste for these mouthwatering marbles.

I used to hate them. Every Christmas, under pressure from my giggling relatives, I would choke down a single sprout, making a face like I’d just woken with a whisky hangover.

Complaining did no good, for everywhere I turned were the sprout lovers. At first I thought they were wrong, or wrongheaded, but after a time I began to ponder their near-religious zeal for a bitter, revolting vegetable. I thought: maybe I’m not doing this right.

In that moment I vowed to find a better way. Could I learn to love the sprout?

Years in journalism taught me to do my research. I worked through online recipes and quizzed my friends. I started a Facebook thread and was struck by how many people provided intriguing recipes – and how many others suggested sprouts were to blame for all the evil in the world. I was undeterred. Last Tuesday, at about 6 o’clock, I gathered my children for the Great Sprout Experiment of 2017.

I sliced up a bagful and, armed with a muffin tin, applied a dozen approaches to the sprout problem.

There was ham, and garlic. There was cheddar, and chillies. There was butter, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and precious, delicious bacon. Crucially, there was a combination of onions and maple syrup that was probably inspired by alien secrets released from Area 51. Some of it wasn’t fantastic. The spicy options were too overwhelming in relation to the sprout taste. It was easy to overdo the garlic, and the ham parcels needed to be wrapped more tightly.

But the balsamic was majestic. The cheese smelled just right. The bacon was, as usual, perfect, and that syrupy jus even delighted my seven-year-old son. The experiment was a success!

My hatred of this defamed vegetable is gone forever, and the lesson was simple: if you want to make sprouts palatable, remember the golden rule.

Make them unhealthy.

My hatred for the defamed vegetable is gone forever