GREEN DREAMS

Four of the best-known ‘cultivars’ of wild cabbage

CABBAGE

Probably the first cultivar to be domesticated. The earliest record of the round-headed cabbages we use today is in the 14th century, when they are mentioned in manuscripts and were said to be popular with all classes of people.

CAULIFLOWER

Believed to have originated in Cyprus, the Roman 1st century writer Pliny called it ‘cyma’ and said, “Of all the varieties of cabbage the most pleasant-tasted is cyma.” Well known

in Europe by the Middle Ages, it was first mentioned by the English herbalist John Gerard in his 1597

Herball, where he recommended that it should be sown on a hot dung

pile in spring. The name derives from the Italian caoli fiori, meaning

‘cabbage flower’.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS

The much-quoted statement that it was first discovered in Brussels in 1750 is doubted as it was being cultivated in Europe in the 16th century. There is a possible scientific explanation why some people, especially children, dislike it. We share a gene with our Neanderthal ancestors that makes a proportion of the population dislike a chemical that give sprouts their bitter taste. A pity because the nutritional value of sprouts is legendary.

BROCCOLI

Grown for its edible flower buds and stalk it was cultivated in Italy in early Roman times and introduced into England in the mid 1800s, when it was called ‘Italian asparagus’. The name derives from the Italian word broccolo, which means ‘the flowering crest of a cabbage’.