Culham Research Group

Brussels sprout

The Brussels Sprout is the true plant of Christmas! So says Professor John Warren, and he has statistics to prove his point! The British have a strange love-hate relationship with the Brussels sprout, purchasing 150 million of them during the week before Christmas and then boiling them to an inedible mush!

But 150 million is impressive and  way more than we buy Christmas trees, which surely takes the humble sprout to the top Christmas botanical spot ousting the usual suspects – holly, ivy, mistletoe, Norway spruce and even frankincense or myrrh!

The botany of the Brussels sprout is remarkable, being merely a variety of the common cabbage (Brassica oleracea) and so is genetically the same as the cabbage but also to a wide range of other brassicas – cauliflower, broccoli, calabrese, kohlrabi, collards and kale.

The cabbage has been around for millennia – earliest records of cultivated cabbages are to be found in the writings of ancient Greece and Rome and date from around 600 BC, but in contrast, the sprout is a recent invention. It was first recorded in Belgium in 1750, near Brussels (well, it’s what it says on the tin!). From there it took about 50 years for the crop to spread to France and Britain. Continue reading →