Kale Recipes

The old, original Brassica oleracea ancestor is native to the Mediterranean region of Europe, and is somewhat similar in appearance to a leafy canola plant. Sometime soon after the first domestication of plants, that ancestral plant 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.

By the 5th century B.C., that continued preference for ever-larger leaves led to the vegetable we now know as kale (known botanically as Brassica oleracea acephala, "headless cabbage"). Eventually, the other cole crops familiar today, from cabbage to Brussels sprouts, were bred out of kale.

What is collectively called "kale" by gardeners encompasses two species (Brassica napus and B. oleracea, each of which has several races (subspecies), making a total of ten members of the genus Brassica (family Cruciferae) that are usually called "kale".

B. Oleracea was the wild ancestor of cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, and cauliflower; it arose along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of Europe. Today, there are at least a half dozen recognized races of B. oleracea, such as Brassica oleracea Alboglabra (which includes the white-flowered Chinese kale, native to Southeast Asia).

The other "kale" genus is B. napus; that--to complicate matters--also takes in not only such things as the noted "Red Russian" kale, but also what gardeners commonly call rutabagas (or "Swedes" or "Swede turnips") as well as rape (now often, for social reasons, called canola), from which a valuable oil is commercially extracted; the genus is today widely adapted throughout northern Eurasia, though its region of origin is unknown.

Kale and collards are similar in many respects, differing in little more than the forms of their leaves. They are, in effect, primitive cabbages that have been retained through thousands of years.

Although more highly developed forms, such as cauliflower, broccoli, and head cabbage, have been produced in the last two thousand years or so, the kales and collards have persisted, although primitive, because of their merits as garden vegetables.

These leafy non-heading cabbages bear the Latin name Brassica oleracea variety acephala, the last term meaning "without a head." They have many names in many languages, as a result of their great antiquity and widespread use.