Cauliflower is weird
Cauliflower is weird. So is cabbage. Broccoli not so much, but kohlrabi? Definitely weird. And Brussels sprouts! They look like little brains.
The main thing, though, is they’re staple foods in the northern U.S. Whenever we learn about the Year Without a Summer (there were multiple) or the Little Ice Age, I think of the cauliflower in my fridge. Most vegetables are perishable. Potatoes? They’ll keep for a while and then start growing. Carrots? They’ll either sprout hairy roots or dry into fossils. Cucumbers? Moldy. Lettuce? Brown and mushy. Celery? Limp and wobbly. Bell peppers? Fine, mostly, except for the parts that are absolute mush. There’s no in between for peppers: they’re fine and then they’re soup. Tomatoes likewise, but sooner, and tomatoes have a tough hide that restrains their soupiness until they splat. They make better weapons.
Something about the brassica family of foods: they don’t give up. Broccoli is the most perishable, and all it does is turn yellow and tough. I admit, I’ve never kept Brussels sprouts in my fridge; in my house they’re frozen until roasted. But I imagine they keep almost as well as the cabbage that lives for weeks in the crisper. The dang thing starts growing roots, in the fridge!
Cauliflower is technically a huge clump of flowerbuds. I have no idea what pollinates it. I grew some once. It’s a large plant, for a vegetable, with really long leaves and a sturdy stalk. It grows for a long time. When everything else is nearly done for the year, when I’m cleaning up the dead stalks, the cauliflower finally starts to grow a head. This head grows bigger than a man’s clenched fist, and ideally you pull the long leaves up over it and tie them shut, so the sunlight doesn’t turn the head green. It stays this pristine white until there’s frost on the ground, getting larger and larger. When you think it’s big enough, you cut the stem and bring the head indoors. There it keeps in the refrigerator for another couple months. The plants stay alive, without the head, until sometime after they’re covered with snow. I don’t know when they stopped growing; I was indoors.
