| featured foods: |
| Avocados |
| Blueberries |
| Carrots |
| Cherries |
| Chile Peppers |
| Cruciferous Crops |
| Dates |
| Figs |
| Heirloom Vegetables |
| Kiwi |
| Peaches |
| Persimmons |
| Pomegranates |
| Roots |
What's Special
Cruciferous crops
Brassicaceae has made a substantial contribution to humans’ foods choices: the enormous cabbage family includes turnips, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, rapini, romanesco, mustard seed, mustard greens, collards, kale, bok choy, canola, rutabaga, radish, watercress, and arugula, among others. Brassicas are also called cruciferous vegetables (from the Latin crux, which means cross) because they bear flowers with four petals in the shape of a cross. The common ancestor of these plants probably originated in Northern Europe where (headless) cabbages were first cultivated thousands of years ago. Subsequently, the crop spread around Europe and Asia where it malleably transformed into the many cruciferous crops we know today. Vegetables like broccoli, romanesco, and cauliflower were selected for large flowering heads; mustard greens, cabbage, collards, and bok choy for big greens; turnips, radishes, and kohlrabi for bulbous stems and roots. Just a few species comprise most of the brassicas we regularly eat. Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, collard greens, and kohlrabi, different as they look, are all cultivar groups of the species Brassica oleracea. Turnip, rapini, bok choy and tatsoi all belong to the species Brassica rapa.