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 Last
year, at just about this time, I was meandering through my local supermarket
when I overheard a woman at the meat counter. She'd just picked up
a slab of corned beef and asked the meat counter guy how you cooked
cabbage.
"Just boil
it for about an hour or so," he opined.
If she followed his advice, her apartment would probably have stopped
smelling by…oh, about now.
Which does raise the whole issue of cabbage. For many people cabbage
is just for coleslaw, and the only time they eat it as a cooked
vegetable is with that corned beef on St. Patrick's Day. The result?
Overcooked green sludge and a house filled with the most revolting
smell this side of your local landfill.
It doesn't have to be this way, of course. Cabbage is one of the
oldest vegetables in European cooking and methods of preparation
extend from the simple to the unnervingly complex. Always famous
for its smell, the cabbage was nevertheless adored by the ancient
Greeks and Romans who thought that it was good for you (which it
is) and that eating it before a party would stave off drunkenness
(it doesn't).
As with most
vegetables, we wouldn't recognize it in its earliest form. The ancestral
cabbage didn't have a head, it was a scraggly seaside plant that
looked more like modern kale. But sometime in the 1st century BC
the first headed cabbages are reported. By the time Pliny the Elder
was writing in the 1st century AD, there were cabbages with 12"
diameter heads (the Romans liked BIG vegetables). Never a gourmet
dish, the vegetable has always been associated with basic, rustic
cooking. Diogenes, famed both for his philosophy and his awful manners,
ate nothing but cabbage and water. Apicius, of cookbook fame, was
more circumspect. His recipes focus on the cabbage shoots, which
he calls cauliculus. As with almost everything else in his book,
they are prepared with a variety of highly spiced sauces.
The Romans
were also aware of the plant's medicinal properties. Pliny talks
about the healing properties of cabbage leaves or juice applied
externally. By the time the middle ages rolled around, cabbage plasters
were being used as a remedy for sciatica and varicose ulcers. These
healing properties can be traced to the same element that accounts
for the awful smell - sulphur.
By the eighteenth
century, cabbages were being loaded onto ships for long voyages.
The vitamin C helped to stave off scurvy, and had other uses as
well, as Captain Cook discovered while on his first voyage. When
a violent storm injured 40 of his crew, the ship's doctor used compresses
of cabbage to stave off gangrene in their wounds.
So what is
the best way to prepare this big green miracle? In many cases simplicity
is best, as these medieval instructions explain: "Take a large quantity
of the worts (cabbages) - and shred them, and put butter thereto,
and seethe them and serve forth - and let nothing else come nigh
them." This kind of preparation is certainly best with your St.
Paddy's Day feast, but I've included a couple of other methods,
for those of you with more adventurous souls.
The best way
to avoid making the whole house stink is to shred the cabbage and
cook it fairly quickly. All of the following recipes call for shredded
cabbage. What exactly is shredded cabbage? Just quarter the head
and remove the hard inner core, then slice each quarter into shreds
no more than half and inch wide. As for the best variety, the hard
drumhead cabbages are the most readily available in US markets,
but some stores carry the curly-leaved Savoys. Get one of these,
if you can. They are much more tender and tasty, as well as having
more visual appeal.
Basic
Cabbage -- this is the simplest recipe. It's buttery and peppery
and wonderful with all kinds of roast meats, but particularly beef
and pork.
Caraway
Cabbage and Cranberries - This calls for stir-frying the cabbage,
which seals the leaves and stops them from smelling.
Athenian
Cabbage - This was a favorite of the Greeks and Romans. The
recipe originally appeared in a book of dietary advice by Mnesitheus
(4th century BC), who was a doctor from Athens. The dish was supposed
to cure headaches and soothe upset stomachs.
Once you're
done, don't put any cabbage down the waste disposal - if you think
it smells when you cook it, wait until it's been festering in the
drain for a few days! Also, when discarding, place it in a sealed
plastic bag - that'll stop it from making the garbage smell. Cabbage
is always best fresh, and doesn't reheat very well, but it can be
quickly warmed up in a microwave if necessary.
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