Cabbage

“ In the midst of these high branches is what is called the cabbage, which, when taken out of the outer leaves, is a foot in length, and as thick as the small of a man's leg, as white as milk, and both sweet and wholesome. ”

“ Archer moved heavily in the direction of the plot of cabbages, which swelled with monstrous contours and many colours; objects, perhaps, more worthy of the philosophic eye than is taken into account by the more flippant tongue. Vegetables are curious-looking things and less commonplace than they sound. If we called a cabbage a cactus, or some such queer name, we might see it as an equally queer thing. ”

“ The gardener’s wife takes care that the sacred vegetable shall not be hurt in its fall. The wits of the wedding, the hemp-dresser, the grave-digger, the carpenter, and the sabot-maker, form a ring about the cabbage, for men who do not till the soil, but pass their lives in other people’s houses, are thought to be, and are really, wittier and more talkative than simple farmhands. One digs, with a spade, a ditch deep enough to uproot an oak. ”

“ And it is a fact, though not generally known, but which deserves greater publicity, that when the common garden cabbage is in perfection, and we wish to cut it, if, instead of severing the whole from the stalk, as is usually done, the loaf, or heart only be scooped out, and all the large lower leaves left entire, a young cabbage will, in due time, be produced, superior in flavour, if not equal in size, to that of the first growth. ”

“ The cabbage, which grows out from the bottom of the branches, is about a foot long and very white; and at the bottom of this there grow clusters of berries, weighing five or six pounds, like bunches of grapes, as red as cherries and larger than our black-heart cherries, each having a large stone in the middle, and the pulp eats like our haws. These cabbage trees abound about three miles into the woods, the trunk being often eighty or ninety feet high, and is always cut down to get the cabbages, which are good eating; but most of them grow on the tops of the nearest mountains to the great bay. ”

“ The cabbage is a solid; it can be approached from all sides at once; it can be realized by all senses at once. Compared with that the sunflower, which can only be seen, is a mere pattern, a thing painted on a flat wall. Now, it is this sense of the solidity of things that can only be uttered by the metaphor of eating. To express the cubic content of a turnip, you must be all round it at once. ”

“ These little miniature cabbages, growing closely together on a stalk, are delicious boiled like cabbage or used as a salad. The culture is the same as that accorded cabbage. The seed should be sown in the hotbed in spring and set out in the open ground in May in rows three feet apart and about twenty inches apart in the rows. Cultivate to keep down weeds and maintain a dust-mulch. By fall the little heads will be fully developed. The delicate flavor is improved by a touch of frost. ”

“ The Cabbage is a great subject, and competes with the Potato for pre-eminence in the cottage garden, in the market garden, and on the farm, sometimes with such success as to prove the better paying crop of the two. ”

“ I can paint cabbages very well; but then they don't look pretty in a picture, you know.
Artist. Indeed, I doubt not your delicate hand would lend a charm to any object it might portray. Nature is full of beauties, and there is a world of loveliness even in a cabbage. ”

“ We will add only one more proof of the virtues of the cabbage, and that a truly marvellous one—in all vessels in which water is boiled, the incrustations which adhere with such tenacity that it is otherwise impossible to detach them, will fall off immediately if a cabbage is boiled therein. ”

“ Of all vegetable productions, perhaps the cabbage is the most exuberant for this purpose, and ought by all means to be encouraged. The drum-headed cabbage, and the hardy variety of a deep green colour with purple veins, and of the same size with the drum-head, are particularly useful in the feeding of cows, and afford an increase of milk far superior to that produced by turnips. ”

“ BRUSSELS SPROUTS. Brassica Rapa.—This is also a useful variety of the cabbage species, which is very productive, forming a large number of beautiful small close-headed cabbages on their high stalks in the winter season. The seeds are sown in March.
418. BURNET. Poterium Sanguisorba.—The young leaves of this plant are eaten with other tender herbs in the spring, and are considered a wholesome addition to mustard, cress, corn-salad, &c.
419. CABBAGE. Brassica oleracea.—The varieties of cabbage are numerous. The most esteemed are,
The Early York. The Early Sugar-loaf. The Early Battersea. ”

“ The external, free leaves are not prized as a food. The varieties of the cabbage are almost legion and are produced by different methods of cultivation.
Composition.—
[279]
The above data show that cabbage is composed chiefly of water, amounting to as much as 91 percent of its weight. Its principal food constituents are starch, sugar, and digestible fiber. Its most valuable food constituent is most probably the protein, of which it contains a large proportionate quantity. In all its forms cabbage is a wholesome, if not very nutritious, dish. ”

“ The cabbage, or soft pith and young unfolded leaves at the summit of the stem, in taste approaching the chestnut, is also eaten, but only when the tree has fallen or been felled, as the loss of its crown invariably destroys it. ”

“ Moreover if you wish to spoil a dish of good spuds, there is no surer way than by leaving on the dish-cover. So much for boiling ’em—or steaming ’em.
The Cabbage is a fine, friendly fellow, who makes himself at home, and generally useful, in the garden; whilst his great heart swells, and swells, in the full knowledge that he is doing his level best to please all. ”

“ Cut and wash a large red cabbage, put it into a stew-pan and boil it in water three or four hours, and till there remains no more than a pint of liquor; put the cabbage into a sieve, squeezing it till you have expressed all the juice; let it settle, and pour it off clear; then put a pound of Narbonne honey into a saucepan, with a glass of water; let it boil, skimming it often; when the honey is very clear put in the cabbage juice, and boil them together till of the consistence of syrup, like the preceding. ”

“ The color of this vegetable in its natural state appeals to the esthetic sense of every artist, and many 19a beautiful picture has been made of a field of cabbages; yet the farmer who sees a man sit down with canvas and brush before his cabbage patch usually regards him as a crank, for to his untutored mind cabbages are associated only with their utility. ”

“ All cabbages are blanched before using them, with the exception of stuffed cabbage, which must be left whole.
918. Cabbage with Cream. —Drain, and let cool a well-blanched cabbage (No. 917) ; chop it up, and place it in a saucepan with two ounces of butter, seasoning with a good pinch of salt, half a pinch of pepper, and the third of a pinch of grated nutmeg; add a tablespoonful of flour, stir well, and moisten with a cupful of cream. Reduce until the cabbage and gravy are well incorporated, which will take about forty-five minutes. Arrange on a hot dish, and serve. ”

“ If a piece of land is planted with seed grown from two heads of cabbage the product will bear a striking resemblance to the two parent cabbages, with a third variety which will combine the characteristics of these two, yet the resemblance will be somewhat modified at times by a little more manure, a little higher culture, a little better location, and the addition of an individuality that particular vegetables occasionally take upon themselves which we designate by the word "sport." ”

“ Thus through the wisdom of the Great Father of us all, who occasionally in his great garden allows vegetables to sport into a higher form of life, and grants to some of these sports sufficient strength of individuality to enable them to perpetuate themselves, and, at times, to blend their individuality with that of other sports, we have the heading cabbage in its numerous varieties, the creamy cauliflower, the feathery kale, the curled savoy. ”

“ The cabbage is a plant which, as it approaches maturity, has its leaves folded upon each other in a solid mass, producing the head. These leaves naturally become bleached and are extremely crisp and tender. ”

“ Every season I experiment with foreign and American varieties of cabbage to learn the characteristics of the different kinds, their comparative earliness, size, shape, and hardness of head, length of stump, and such other facts as would prove of value to market gardeners. There is one fact that every careful experimenter soon learns, that one season will not teach all that can be known relative to a variety, and that a number of specimens of each kind must be raised to enable one to make a fair comparison. ”

“ For a year he had been endeavouring to cultivate a slouch which, together with a ragged beard, might make his apparent dealing in such innocent vegetable produce as cabbages, cauliflowers, and potatoes less open to doubt. A momentary shiver went down his spine as he reflected that certain papers might even now be in the hands of the military—papers whereon the word ‘cabbage’ stood opposite ‘dynamite’, and potatoes were labelled ‘detonators’. ”

“ These cabbage-trees or palms were not thicker than a man's leg, and from ten to twenty feet high. They are of the same genus with the cocoa-nut tree; like it they have large pinnated leaves, and are the same as the second sort found in the northern parts of New South Wales*. The cabbage is, properly speaking, the bud of the tree; each tree producing but one cabbage, which is at the crown, where the leaves spring out, and is inclosed in the stem. The cutting off the cabbage effectually destroys the tree; so that no more than one can be had from the same stem. ”

“ The outer leaves which surround the head appear to have the same office as the leaves which surround the growing fruit bud, and that office closes with the first year, as does that of the leaves surrounding fruit buds, when each die and drop off. In my locality the public must have perceived more or less clearly the analogy between the heads of cabbage and the buds of trees, for when they speak of small heads they frequently call them "buds." ”

“ We got, however, from the rocks, at low water, a few rock-oysters, and cockles of a very large size; and from the shore some cocoa-nuts, and the upper part of the tree that bears them, which is called the cabbage: This cabbage is a white, crisp, juicy substance, which, eaten raw, tastes somewhat like a chesnut, but when boiled is superior to the best parsnip; we cut it small into the broth that we made of our portable soup, which was afterwards thickened with oatmeal, and made a most comfortable mess: For each of these cabbages, however, we were forced to cut down a tree ”

“ Cabbage, Turnip-Tops, and Greens.—All the cabbage tribe, which comprises coleworts, brocoli, cauliflower, sprouts and turnip-tops, in order to be delicate, should be dressed young, when they have a rapid growth; but if they have stood the summer, to render them tender, they should be allowed to have a touch of frost. The cabbage contains much vegetable albumen, and several parts of sulphur and nitrate of potash. Cabbage is less digestible than some other vegetables, and is more suited for robust and active persons than the sedentary or delicate. ”

“ Stuffed Cabbage.—Cut the leaves of a large white cabbage as whole as possible, cut out the stalks, wash the leaves well, and boil them only until tender, in three quarts of boiling water and salt, with a piece of soda as large as a dried pea; have ready some sausage meat highly seasoned, and as soon as the cabbage is tender carefully drain it in a colander, run cold water from the faucet over it, and, without tearing the leaves, lay them open on the table, two or three upon each other, making eight or ten piles. ”

“ I have seen the cabbage bed so full of plants that it seemed as if two plants or more had sprung from every seed. Early and late cabbage, the rows labeled, can be planted in the same bed; lettuce, pepper grass, parsley and radishes in another, taking care to sow the radish seed thinly as the plants will not transplant well, and the radishes must be used for the table taken from the place where the seeds are sown. Cabbages grow better when the small plants are transplanted to the large bed where they are to stand for their season’s growth. ”

“ A small species of cabbage tree, called here palmiste, is not rare and is much esteemed; the undeveloped leaves at the head of the tree, when eaten raw, resemble in taste a walnut, and a cauliflower when boiled; dressed as a sallad they are superior to perhaps any other, and make an excellent pickle. ”

“ The cabbage grows more like a cabbage with great tendency toward heading. The Cos grows longer, narrower, and has spoon-shaped leaves, which have a big, coarse midrib. The inner leaves cling more closely together after a heading fashion; the outer leaves spread apart. We grow in our American gardens more of the cabbage type than of the Cos. Should we go to see our French cousins next summer, the Cos lettuce would be served to us with plenty of oil as a dressing.
"As the summer advances and as the early sowings of lettuce get old they tend to go to seed. ”

“ Until one has tried it, he will not know how delightfully sweet this cabbage is, perfectly plain, eaten slowly with Brazil nuts, filberts, almonds or English walnuts. It may be served with olive oil or lemon juice, or with both together or with sauce 16, 34 or 57, or with the sour cream or sour milk salad dressing without cooling. Use two eggs in dressing when serving warm.
If cooked until it begins to turn dark, cabbage will have a strong flavor and will be indigestible. ”

“ In twelve years' experience in growing this variety I have never found a diseased plant nor, except in a year of very exceptional weather, a soft head. They keep well over winter and are altogether a very satisfactory all round cabbage. ”