Curated playlist
Leaf vegetables
- CabbageCabbage gets its name from an Old French word meaning "head". The name fits how its leaves fold into a tight globe.
- ChardRainbow chard is not one plant but a mix of several colored varieties. Chard is in the same species as beetroot.
- OnionThe onion has been grown for at least 7,000 years, yet no wild ancestor has ever been found.
- SpinachSpinach is no richer in iron than many other vegetables. Popeye's canned-spinach strength is an academic urban legend.
- ParsleyParsley seeds take four to six weeks to sprout. A natural germination inhibitor in the seed coat slows them.
- Sweet potatoSweet potatoes were in Polynesia centuries before any European ship arrived.
- Chili pepperBirds can eat the hottest chili peppers without distress. They lack the pain receptor that responds to capsaicin.
- TurnipAround 1700, "Turnip" Townshend used turnips to keep English livestock alive through winter.
- CeleryCelery was once used to crown winners of the sacred Nemean Games. Ancient Greeks also wove it into funeral garlands.
- TaroTaro, the root vegetable that botanists call Colocasia esculenta, reached 18 million tonnes of world production in 2022. Nigeria alone grew 46 percent of that total, far ahead of every other country. The crop ranks fifth among the world's…
- KaleFor most of the 20th century, American kale was just a garnish. It became a widely eaten vegetable only in the 1990s.
- RutabagaThe rutabaga has its own curling championship. A farmers' market in Ithaca, New York, stages the International Rutabaga Curling Championship every year, on the last day of its market season. In August, the villages of Askov, Minnesota, and…
- QuinoaQuinoa, the seed crop of the high Andes, once carried a grand nickname from the Incas: chisiya mama, which in Quechua means mother of all grains. Botanically, that title is generous. Quinoa is not a grass and not a true cereal. It is a…
- ChayoteChayote is an edible fruiting vine of the gourd family, and in Brazil its local name doubles as a pet name. Chuchu is the Brazilian word for the fruit, and it is also a term of endearment, much like calling someone "Honey" in English. The…