Who doesn’t love cabbage?
Ms. Lindsay Zimmerman, one of Barstow’s Upper School English teachers, has had a few interesting experiences…with cabbage. While one might assume any memorable experience with cabbage would be strange, Ms. Zimmerman’s cabbage encounter with one of her freshman students became an evolving Brassica ballad.
“It’s nutritious and underappreciated,” Ms. Zimmerman says.
Ms. Zimmerman’s cabbage craze started when she took a closer look at what she enjoyed in her salad, an ingredient that many people overlook: cabbage. This small but significant delicacy piqued her interest and convinced her to view cabbage from a different perspective.
Cabbage is a nutritious vegetable that may look like lettuce, but is actually more closely related to broccoli. Cabbage is packed with a variety of nutrients, especially vitamin C. In addition to having lots of good-for-you vitamins and minerals, cabbage can also help aid digestion and may even be linked to things like lower inflammation.
“But cabbage is boring!” a chorus of hypothetical readers claims. This very claim led to Ms. Zimmerman’s forever-changed relationship with cabbage. While studying George Orwell’s 1984, I, Enzi Nasima ‘27 strongly objected to the idea that cabbage was “bland.”
This interesting statement led Ms. Zimmerman and I to over-analyze cabbage as a secret higher force of nature. The idea of cabbage being practically useless is a draining thought, and just by mentioning the vegetable, people will snap from their controlled reality and into the thought of cabbage. Cabbage is but an ordinary vegetable. It can be cooked, and left raw, and comes in many different flavors if seasoned correctly. The fact that this simple flora evokes such strong emotions is a testament to its power. How can a food that is merely “bland” capture attention the way cabbage did during my freshman year English class?
Theoretically, people are trained to not enjoy certain foods such as broccoli and brussel sprouts, but trying new things for the first time instead of following popular opinion can lead to a variety of different interests. The symbolism that cabbage holds is an underappreciated topic, but with the help of Ms. Zimmerman and me, cabbage can become a more appreciated and less shunned vegetable.
