Cabbage

Cabbage \ Cab"bage\, noun

An esulent vegetable of many varieties, derived from the wild Brassica oleracea of Europe. The common cabbage has a compact head of leaves (see Varieties below). The cauliflower, brussels sprout, etc. are sometimes classed as cabbages. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1993)

The cabbage (Brassica oleracea Capitata Group) is a plant of the Family Brassicaceae (or Cruciferae). It is herbaceous, biennial, and a dicotyledonous flowering plant with leaves forming a characteristic compact cluster.

The cabbage is derived from a leafy wild mustard plant, native to the Mediterranean region. It was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans; Cato the Elder praised this vegetable for its medicinal properties, declaring that "it is first of all the vegetables".. The English name derives from the Normanno-Picard caboche ("head"). Cabbage was developed by ongoing artificial selection for suppression of the internode length. The dense core of the cabbage is called the babchka.

Genetics

Cabbages are members of the Cruciferae family, Brassica genus.

There are many food crops closely related to cabbage, including kale (a form of cabbage, Brassica oleracea Acephala Group), Brussels sprouts(Brassica oleracea Gemmifera Group), kohlrabi (Brassica oleracea Gongylodes Group), broccoli (Brassicaceae, formerly Cruciferae), cauliflower (Botrytis Group, Brassica oleracea, family Brassicaceae), radishes (edible roots vegetable of the Brassicaceae family), turnips (Brassica rapa var. rapa), rutabagas (Brassica napobrassica, or Brassica napus var. napobrassica), watercress (Nasturtium nasturtium-aquaticum, N. microphyllum, formerly Rorippa nasturtium-aquaticum, of the Family Brassicaceae), and mustard (Brassica juncea).

Origin

History The original Brassica oleracea ancestor is native to the Mediterranean region of Europe. Soon after the first domestication of plants, that ancestral "cabbage" was being grown as a leafy vegetable around the Mediterranean. Because the leaves were the part of the plant consumed, those plants with the largest leaves were selectively propagated for next year's crop.

The continued preference for ever-larger leaves led to the vegetable we now know as kale (known botanically as Brassica oleracea acephala, "headless cabbage." Kale is, of course, still grown today. But eventually some developed a taste for those plants with a tight cluster of tender young leaves in the center of the plant, at the top of the stem, and that type, too, came to be selected for; over the centuries, that selecting led to what we think of as cabbages, which were probably a distinct type by as early as the 1st century C.E. (That's why cabbage is Brassica oleracea capitata, "headed cabbage".)

Cultivation

Cabbage garden in Shanghai, China.

Broadly speaking, cabbage varieties come in two groups, early and late. The early varieties mature in about 50 days. They produce small heads which do not keep well and are intended for consumption while fresh. The late cabbage matures in about 80 days, and produces a larger head.

Cabbage can be started indoors or sowed directly. Like all brassicae, cabbage is a cool season crop, so early and late plantings do better than those maturing in the heat of the summer.

Cabbages keep well and were thus a common winter vegetable before refrigeration and long-distance shipping of produce.

Pests of Cabbage

Control of insect pests is important, particularly in commercial production where appearance is a driver of success. The pesticides sevin and malathion are both listed for use on cabbage. The caterpillars of some butterflies in the family Pieridae (the "whites") feed on brassicas and can be serious pests.

Diseases

Damping Off This soil-bourn fungus commonly affects seeds and young transplants. Infected seeds decay in the soil, while young seedlings and transplants rot at the soil line.

Downy Mildew This disease, caused by a fungus attacks both seedlings and mature vegetable plants. Infected plants develop a gray mold on the underside of the leaf. The leaf top first turns yellow and then brown. Eventually, the leaves wither and die, thus killing the plant.

Alternia Leaf Spot This fungus causes spots to form on the stems of seedlings, causing damping-off or stunting of the plant growth. Spots develop with concentric rings and eventually kill the leaves.

Black Rot This bacteria affects all members of the cricifer family. In general, V shaped lesions appear on the leaf tips. As these lesions enlarge, they wilt the leaf tissue and can spread to the stems as well.

Black Leg This fungus causes ash gray spots with tiny dots on the leaves and stems. The stems become girdled, wither and die.

Wirestem This fungus affects the stem near the soil line, causing it to constrict and to rot.

Viruses The most commonvirus affecting cole crops, including cabbage is Turnip mosiac virus along with Cauliflower mosiac virus. Affected plants develop black spots, causing stunted plant growth.

Uses

The only part of the plant that is normally eaten is the leafy head; more precisely, the spherical cluster of immature leaves, excluding the partially unfolded outer leaves. The so-called 'cabbage head' is widely consumed — raw, cooked, or preserved — in a great variety of dishes, and is thus a leaf vegetable. While raw cabbage can be eaten in hand, for most uses it is sliced into thin strips or shredded into salads or chopped, as in coleslaw. Cabbage is often prepared by boiling, usually as part of soups or stews such as the Central Europe and Eastern European borscht. Boiling tenderizes the leaves, and releases sugars, and develops a characteristic "cabbage" aroma. Indeed, boiled cabbage seems to have fallen out of favor in North America, possibly due to the strong smell released during the cooking, or to its reputation for promoting flatulence. Boiled cabbage as an accompaniment to meats and other dishes can be an opportune source of umami, sugars and dietary fiber.

Cabbage is often consumed as the German sauerkraut and Korean kimchi. Finely sliced cabbage is mixed with salt and undergoes lactic acid fermentation. Sauerkraut was historically prepared at home, as a way of storing food for the winter; but like other canned and pickled foods is nowadays mainly an industrialized product. Cabbage is known to have been used in European folk medicine to treat acute inflammation. A paste of raw cabbage may be placed in a cabbage leaf and wrapped around the affected area to reduce discomfort. It may also be effective in the relief of painfully engorged breasts in breastfeeding women.

Varieties

Red Cabbage tastes like green cabbage. It is used as a garnish but can tend to bleed its color into other foods when cooked.

Savoy cabbage is like ordinary cabbage, but with a milder flavor.

Green Cabbage is the standard cabbage grown commercially and available n grocery stores and from home gardens.

Bok Choi is also known as Chineese cabbage, is milder than green or red and used in many oriental dishes.

Related Brassica oleracea varieties

Besides cabbage proper, the species Brassica oleracea has many distinctive cultivars, which are commonly known by other names: broccoli (Italica Group), cauliflower (Botrytis Group), kale, collard greens, and spring greens (Acephala Group), kohlrabi (Gongylodes Group), brussels sprouts (Gemmifera Group), Chinese kale or Chinese broccoli (Alboglabra Group), broccolini (Italica × Alboglabra Group), and broccoflower (Italica × Botrytis Group).

External links

• Cabbage for the home gardener

• National Gardening Association

• iVillage.com Garden Site

• Garden Guides

• HGTV

• Organic Gardening

• Varieties of cabbage

• Recipes for kimchi

• Sauerkraut recipes