Wirsing cabbage

My third German cabbage is called Wirsing, and I haven’t come across an english word for it. It has very crinkly leaves that form a compact head, and it’s just one of those cabbages that you can eat slow cooked. With a few shallots (I like to puree them before adding, while they are still raw), nutmeg, salt, pepper, and sweet cream, it’s one of the more elegant versions of winter cabbage that I personally know. If cabbage can be called elegant at all. I guess it can, if you are willing to include such beauties as romanesco cauliflower in the cabbage family. I have a few of those little guys overwintering in one of my beds. It took growing my own cauliflower to convince me that this actually is a tasty vegetable. Before, I knew only the huge white Supermarket variety, which basically tastes like nothing much, except, well, cauliflower. Yikes.
Then, we ate the first of our own. They were comparatively tiny white, yellowish green, and purple heads that I had picked in the cold just a few hours before steaming them in a bamboo steamer for about four or five minutes. I browned a few almond slivers in butter, poured everything on top of the cauliflower heads, and there was dinner. Boy, were we in for a surprise. They did not taste like „cauliflower“ at all. They were sweet. They had a subtle, complex, nutty aroma that was different in each of the three varieties we were eating. Togehter with the butter and the slivered almonds, it was a simple and unbelievably tasty meal. If I had to make a list of veggies that are the most different from supermarket standard when they are home grown, cauliflower would be way up there alongside tomatoes. Once you’ve tasted your own, there’s basically no going back to supermarket. Even farmers’ market doesn’t come close. Go ahead, call me a food snob.