What is the history of cabbage?

Answer 1

Although the evidence points to the eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor as the place of origin of the species, pots containing cabbage that date back to 4,000 B.C. have been found in Shensi province in China.

The Celts of central and Western Europe had much to do with the distribution and popularization of cabbage as a food plant. Celtic knowledge of it was so ancient as to have influenced the Latin name, Brassica (from the Celtic word bresic, meaning "cabbage"). The Celts invaded Mediterranean lands repeatedly from about 600 B.C. to the first century AD, reaching into Asia Minor around 278 B.C. They also reached into the British Isles in the fourth century B.C. Shortly before the beginning of the first century AD, the Romans also spread cabbage into northern Europe and Britain. Because cabbage grows well in cool climates, yields large harvests, and stores well during winter, it soon became a major crop in Europe. Taking only three months growing time, one acre of cabbage will yield more edible vegetables than any other plant.

In Rome, Cato (234 BC-149 BC), who lived to be 85, believed that cabbage should be eaten raw with vinegar. Pliny (23 AD-79AD) had much to say about cabbage. In his work, Natural History, he mentions cabbage under the classification Materia Medica, focusing on its medicinal qualities when taken internally and when used as a poultice.

Early cabbage was not the full-bodied head we take for granted today, but rather a more loose-leaf variety. In southern Europe, Mediterranean peoples developed those forms of cabbage that are tolerant to warm climates (not hard-heading); the hard-heading cabbages were developed in the cooler parts of Europe by peoples largely Celtic, Nordic, or of mixed blood and culture involving Celtic or Nordic peoples. Had there been a hard-heading variety in ancient Rome, it certainly would have attracted enough interest for the old Roman writers to have described it.

"White" (hard-heading) cabbages were apparently unknown until after the time of Charlemagne, who died A.D. 814. Albert of Cologne, in the 13th century, referred to a headed cabbage, and in 14th-century England the words cabaches and caboches were used, indicating then a distinction between heading and nonheading cabbages (coleworts).

It was not until 1536 in Europe that unmistakably clear descriptions of hard-heading cabbage were recorded. At that time also a loose-heading form called romanos, and later called chou d'Italie and chou de Savoys, for the Italian province, was described. Savoy cabbage was one of the variety of dishes introduced to the French by Catherine de Medici who arrived from Florence in 1533 to wed the heir to the French throne. This "savoy cabbage," a crumpled-leaved kind having high quality, was grown in England by the mid-1500's. Cabbage was introduced to America in 1541-42 by the French navigator Jacques Cartier, who planted it in Canada on his third voyage. "Red" cabbage (magenta to purplish) was first described in England in 1570, all of the early varieties being round-headed. The round-headed form is the oldest of the hard types of cabbage and is the only one described during the 16th century.

Because of its popularity among Europeans, cabbage was likely planted in what is now the United States by some of the earliest colonists, although there is no written record of it until 1669. In the 18th century it was being grown by American Indians as well as by the colonists.

In the 17th century, flat-headed and egg-shaped varieties appeared, and in the 18th century conical or pointed kinds were first described.

Hard-heading cabbage was unknown in Japan as late as 1775. At the end of the 18th century, cabbage was laded onto ships making long voyages. We have record of Captain Cook's first voyage in which a storm injured many of the crew members. Supposedly they were saved from gangrene when the ship's doctor made poultices of cabbage to apply to their wounds. Whether this is true or not, those heads of cabbage would have provided the sailors with a great deal of nutrition. Captain Cook was also given to storing choucroute (French sauerkraut) on his ships. Choucroute may have started quite simply as a soup, but is an ancient dish among the early Germanic peoples.

Germany, France, and the Low Countries were by far the most productive of new varieties. Most of the varieties grown in the United States even today originated in Germany and the Low Countries. The Dutch may be the originators of coleslaw: kool means cabbage and sla means salad. The borders of Europe have shifted through the years, but the cabbage is recorded as a popular vegetable in Russia, Germany, Poland and Hungary as we know them today. It is a staple among the Irish.

The world's largest cabbage is credited to William Collingwood of County Durham, England, whose prized cabbage in 1865 weighed in at 123 pounds.