Glorious Purple Vegetable Brain

I grew up eating a lot of cabbage. And it isn't because I am from Germain descent-- or had a particular affinity for this vegetable. It is simply because my mother served it a lot. I think this is true for a lot of people. Cabbage is an ancient, budget-friendly, long-storing, multi-use vegetable. If you think about it, cabbage is utilized around the world: It is shredded for the top of tacos. It is fermented into kimche (Speaking of--don't miss our Showcase Chef series-- Korean Food on Monday, Nov 5). It is boiled and used as a wrapper in Eastern European. It is mixed with mayonnaise and made into coleslaw (the word 'cole' meaning cabbage) in America's heartland. It is boiled into thick stew along with corned beef in Ireland.

In learning more about how cabbages grow, I've also learned why some cabbages taste more sweet while others taste more skunky. For the most part, the flavor of the cabbage depends on the weather: if there has been hard frosts, the cabbage (or any vegetable in the cabbage family, for that matter) will be sweet (the frost convert starches into sugars). If the cabbage has only grown in a mild climate (say it was harvested in California in August) it will be more likely to be pungent.