CHAP. 41—CABBAGES; THE SEVERAL VARIETIES OF THEM.
Cabbage and coleworts, which at the present day are the
most highly esteemed of all the garden vegetables, were held
in little repute, I find, among the Greeks; but Cato,
1 on the
other hand, sings the wondrous praises of the cabbage, the
medicinal properties of which we shall duly enlarge
2 upon
when we come to treat of that subject. Cato distinguishes
three varieties of the cabbage; the first, a plant with leaves
wide open, and a large stalk; a second, with crisped leaves, to
which he gives the name of "apiaca;"
3 and a third, with a
thin stalk, and a smooth, tender leaf, which with him ranks
the lowest of all. Cabbages may be sown the whole year
through, as we find that they are cut at all periods of the year;
the best time, however, for sowing them is at the autumnal
equinox, and they are usually transplanted as soon as five
leaves are visible. In the ensuing spring after the first cutting, the plant yields sprouts, known to us as "cymæ."
4
These sprouts, in fact, are small shoots thrown out from the
main stem, of a more delicate and tender quality than the
cabbage itself. The exquisite palate, however, of Apicius
5
rejected these sprouts for the table, and his example was followed by the fastidious Drusus Cæsar; who did not escape,
however, the censures of his father, Tiberius, for being so
over-nice. After the cymæ have made their appearance the
cabbage throws out its summer and autumn shoots, and then
its winter ones; after which, a new crop of cymæ is produced,
there being no plant so productive as this, until, at last, it is
quite exhausted by its extreme fertility. A second time for
sowing cabbages is immediately after the vernal equinox, the
plants of this growth being transplanted at the end of spring,
that they may not run up into sprouts before coming to a top:
and a third sowing takes place about the summer solstice, the
transplanting being done in summer if the soil is moist, but,
if too dry, in autumn. When moisture and manure are supplied in small quantities, the flavour of the cabbage is all the
more agreeable, but when they are supplied in greater abundance, the plants attain a larger size. Asses' dung is the best
adapted for its growth.
The cabbage, too, is one of those articles so highly esteemed
by epicures; for which reason it will not be amiss if we speak
of it at somewhat greater length. To obtain plants equally
remarkable for their size and flavour, care must be taken first
of all to sow the seed in ground that has had a couple of turnings up, and then to follow up the shoots as they appear above
ground by moulding them up, care being taken to throw up
the earth over them as they increase in luxuriance, and to let
nothing but the summit appear above the surface. This kind
is known as the Tritian
6 cabbage: in money and labour it
costs twice as much as any of the others.
The other varieties of the cabbage
7 are numerous—there is
the Cumanian cabbage, with leaves that lie close to the ground,
and a wide, open head; the Aricinian
8 cabbage, too, of no
greater height, but with more numerous leaves and thinner—this last is looked upon as the most useful of them all, for
beneath nearly all of the leaves there are small shoots thrown
out, peculiar to this variety. The cabbage, again, of Pompeii
9
is considerably taller, the stalk, which is thin at the root,
increasing in thickness as it rises among the leaves, which are
fewer in number and narrower; the great merit of this cabbage is its remarkable tenderness, although it is not able to
stand the cold. The cabbage of Bruttium,
10 on the other hand,
thrives all the better for cold; the leaves of it are remarkably
large, the stalk thin, and the flavour pungent. The leaves,
again, of the Sabine
11 cabbage are crisped to such a degree as
to excite our surprise, and their thickness is such as to quite
exhaust the stem; in sweetness, however, it is said to surpass
all the others.
There have lately come into fashion the cabbages known as
the "Lacuturres;"
12 they are grown in the valley of Aricia,
where there was formerly a lake, now no longer in existence,
and a tower which is still standing. The head of this cabbage
is very large, and the leaves are almost without number, some
of them being round and smooth, and others long and sinewy;
indeed, there is no cabbage that runs to a larger head than this,
with the sole exception of the Tritian variety, which has a
head sometimes as much as a foot in thickness, and throws out
its cymæ the latest of all.
In all kinds of cabbages, hoar-frost contributes very materially to their sweetness; but it is apt to be productive of considerable injury, if care is not taken to protect the pith by
cutting them aslant. Those plants which are intended for
seed are never cut.
There is another kind, again, that is held in peculiar esteem,
and which never exceeds the height of an herbaceous plant;
it is known by the name of "halmyridia,"
13 from the circumstance of its growing on the sea-shore
14 only. It will keep green
and fresh during a long voyage even, if care is taken not to let
it touch the ground from the moment that it is cut, but to put
it into oil-vessels lately dried, and then to bung them so as
to effectually exclude all air. There are some
15 who are of
opinion, that the plant will come to maturity all the sooner
if some sea-weed is laid at the root when it is transplanted,
or else as much pounded nitre as can be taken up with three
fingers; and others, again, sprinkle the leaves with trefoil seed
and nitre pounded together.
16 Nitre, too, preserves the greenness of cabbage when cooked, a result which is equally ensured
by the Apician mode of boiling, or in other words, by steeping
the plants in oil and salt before they are cooked.
There is a method of grafting vegetables by cutting the
shoots and the stalk, and then inserting in the pith the seed
of another plant; a plan which has been adopted with the wild
cucumber even. There is another kind of wild cabbage, also,
the lapsana,
17 which has become famous since the triumphs of
the late Emperor Julius, in consequence of the songs and jokes
of his soldiers more particularly; for in the alternate lines sung
by them, they used to reproach him for having made them live
on lapsana at the siege of Dyrrhachium, and to rally him upon
the parsimonious scale on which he was in the habit of recompensing their services. The lapsana is nothing more than a
wild cyma.
18