Every plate of food I'm presented with in Prague has cabbage on it somewhere.
Sometimes the cabbage is only the garnish, but the Czechs serve cabbage in dozens of delicious ways: as shredded warm red cabbage, in tangy side salads, or fried in pancakes.
In America, I can only think of three ways I ever eat cabbage: in cole slaw, on a Reuben sandwhich, or on a brat when I visit the University of Wisconsin. It probably doesn't amount to more than 1/8th of a cabbage head per year.
I don't know why we don't eat more of it. It's cheap and healthy. I have a theory why we're cabbage-challenged, but I'd like to hear yours.
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3 comments:
Hi Karen!
Thank you so much for writing about my blog! It's truly a wonderful article.
As far as cabbage goes, I see it from the other side. My thoughts are more like "cabbage, AGAIN??" Czechs eat TOO MUCH cabbage! That's all we ate when we were little, cabbage and a green leaf lettuce....if any salad was served..most of the time we had no vegetables at all.
I have three theories:
1) Cabbage = gas = not comfortable!
2) It might be a "bad" (economically speaking), just like potatoes and spam.
3) The junk food culture is not as strong in continental Europe. I noticed people here eat more fresh food.
I'm curious - what are your theories?
My theory is that Central European immigrants to America brought all of their cabbage recipes with them. As they grew more prosperous and their children were a bit insecure about fitting in with "real Americans" families developed a bit of snobbery about food from the 'Old Country' - especially if that food was economical. So they quit serving it. That's my theory about why we eat no cabbage.
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