Boring old cabbage? Before supermarkets, before the omnipresent frozen goods of today, there was, for the winter, among country folk on this island the cabbage (and the turnip if you could wear it) along with the universal spud. Mind you, one household in Connemara, some half a century ago, got through the winter very well on cabbage as the only vegetable apart from the spud, cooked with a ham bone, chopped finely and smothered in home-made butter, the lot well salted and peppered. The husband, it must be said, was a wizard in the greenhouse, and so they had lettuce well into the winter.
This came to mind on reading a well-illustrated feature in a French magazine, devoted to the other members of the family as well as the brassica oleracia. According to this, the cabbage was originally a plant of the sea shore and, in its earliest form can still be found around the beaches and clifftops. Perhaps here, too. It was 4,000 years ago that this primitive version of what we know today, began to be cultivated or tamed. The original was a scattery-leaved plant, recognisable, when pointed out to you, as a relation of the present-day profusion of cabbages, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and the many relations of the original. Because of their origins at the sea-coast, says the article, the cabbage family cannot endure too dry conditions. Warm, dry zones don't suit them. (We are all right on that account.) You need room in your garden for these plants, be it the ordinary garden cabbage, the cauliflower and so on. An unexpected note: this article tells us that the cabbage was not just for eating. It was also used as a poultice for wounds, inflammations and other skin troubles. There is a sketch of a knee enveloped in a big cabbage leaf, tightly bound by a regulation bandage.
Mrs Beeton strikes one note of caution: "Cabbage is heavy, and a long time digesting, which has led to a belief that it is very nourishing. It is only fit food for robust and active persons; the sedentary or delicate should carefully avoid it. Cabbage may be prepared in a variety of ways: it serves as a garniture to several recherche dishes - partridge and cabbage, for example. Bacon and cabbage is a very favourite dish, but only a good stomach can digest it. Now colcannon and champ are subjects to be taken on their own, with some of their variations."