And then there’s Brassica oleracea, where it’s not even a family, but one single species that brings us a heap of classic veggies including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, and gai lan. If you expand to its family you can add turnip, bok choy, radish, wasabi, as well as the majority of source vegetables in the eponymous “vegetable oil”.
For what it’s worth, though I don’t think I’ve ever had them in any form, I’ve heard that the poor reputation of Brussels sprouts is due to the popular way of cooking them in the '30s through '80s being to boil the shit out of them. They’re supposed to be quite good if you cook them the right way.
They should never have been consumed bitter. When they are frozen the bitter substance is destroyed. In former times this implied being harvested only after the first night frosts in autumn, never before. Nowadays there might be some more artificial ways to achieve the same result more reliable. (Perhaps by breeding, too, I’m not sure about this part.)
Taste changes with age, too. The younger, the sweeter and the older, the bitterer people prefer.
And then there’s Brassica oleracea, where it’s not even a family, but one single species that brings us a heap of classic veggies including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, and gai lan. If you expand to its family you can add turnip, bok choy, radish, wasabi, as well as the majority of source vegetables in the eponymous “vegetable oil”.
Brussel sprouts? That’s not a vegetable, that’s heresy! Awful stuff. The rest can be good, depending on the context though.
For what it’s worth, though I don’t think I’ve ever had them in any form, I’ve heard that the poor reputation of Brussels sprouts is due to the popular way of cooking them in the '30s through '80s being to boil the shit out of them. They’re supposed to be quite good if you cook them the right way.
They’ve also had a lot of the bitterness bred out of them since the 90s. The ones I’ve eaten recently are less bad than I remember as a kid.
They’re still bad tho
They should never have been consumed bitter. When they are frozen the bitter substance is destroyed. In former times this implied being harvested only after the first night frosts in autumn, never before. Nowadays there might be some more artificial ways to achieve the same result more reliable. (Perhaps by breeding, too, I’m not sure about this part.)
Taste changes with age, too. The younger, the sweeter and the older, the bitterer people prefer.