Zit ik naar een reclamespotje van een of ander wokmenu te kijken, komt er opeens een Thai op een fiets voorbijrijden. In dat spotje dan. En achterop die fiets: een hele grote krat met broccoli. Ik dacht meteen: “Huh, broccoli, groeit dat daar?”
Wat is internet dan toch geweldig he? Je googelt gewoon “origins of broccoli” en *wham* daar is het antwoord!
The origin of our modern day broccoli may well be an ancient one. Cultivation of a bygone ancestral cabbage may have occurred as early as 8,000 years ago along the Northern European coast. It was from this area that this wild ancestral cabbage was later introduced into the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe and even into the Near East and Orient (Schery, 1972; Heywood, 1978; Snogerup, 1980). Theophrastus (370-285 B.C.) indicates “… that at his time several different coles were already used in Greece,” (Snogerup, 1980). The Romans Plinius (23-79 A.D.) and Cato (234-149 B.C.) also mention the cultivation of a number of different forms of coles, primarily cabbages and kales (Snogerup, 1980). Indeed it is more than likely that “The first selection of sprouting broccoli was probably made in Greece and Italy in the pre-Christian era,” (Heywood, 1978). The present day distribution of many of the brassicas also corresponds nicely to the hypothesis that broccoli and the other coles originated from a vild, Western European B. oleracea (Snogerup, 1980). The preponderance of Brassica genera, species, and varieties is in keeping with N.I. Vavilov’s assertion that the center of origin for a crop corresponds to an area of diversity of its wild relatives. (Ethnobotanical leaflets)