Broccoli – The Five Green Fingers of Jupiter!

Broccoli is, by all scientific measures, the nutritional superhero of the vegetable world! It also happens to have one of the most incredible histories since its “creation” at the hands of early farmers. The story of Broccoli begins with the Rasenna people of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) who were cultivating cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cabbages and cauliflower) beginning at least 3,000 years ago. In the 8th century B.C., the Rasenna peoples were trading heavily with the Greeks, Phoenicians, Sicilians, Corsicans and Sardinians and in that 8th century B.C., the Rasenna began to colonize parts of Italy where the Romans referred to these foreigners as “Tusci” or Etruscans and their new region as Tuscany or Etruria.

The Romans were immediately enamored with broccoli, or as they called it, “the five green fingers of Jupiter.” Pliny the Elder, an Italian naturalist and writer, 23 to 79 A.D., tells us the Romans grew and enjoyed broccoli tremendously. Apicius, the beloved cookbook author of ancient Rome, prepared broccoli by first boiling it and then bruising it “with a mixture of cumin and coriander seeds, chopped onion plus a few drops of oil and sun-made wine.” Roman Emperor Tiberius, 14 B.C. to 37 B.C., had a son named Drusius who took his love of broccoli to excess gorging on broccoli prepared in the Apician manner for an entire month to the exclusion of all other foods until his urine turned bright green and his father scolded him severely for “living precariously.”

A millennium and a half later, broccoli finally migrated out of Italy in the royal caravan of Catherine de Medici of Tuscany when she married Henry II of France in 1533. However, broccoli was not received with much enthusiasm in mainland Europe and it took another two centuries for it to cross the English Channel, in 1716, with the help of the Flemish Sculptor Peter Scheemakers of Antwerp, Belgium (he crafted the William Kent-designed sculpture of William Shakespeare which stands in the Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey). A few years later, the 1724 edition of Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary refers to broccoli in the United Kingdom as a stranger in England and names it “sprout colli-flower” or “Italian Asparagus.” The English were soon turning their noses up at the vegetable, just like the French.

As the New World began to be colonized by Europeans, the Italians brought their broccoli seeds with them. On May 27, 1767, the ever-experimental Farmer President, Thomas Jefferson, planted his first broccoli seeds at his garden at Monticello. A few years later, John Randolph wrote in his “A Treatise on Gardening by a Citizen of Virginia” that broccoli “stems will eat like Asparagus, and the heads like Cauliflower.” Despite these promising words, broccoli languished in the U.S. for another 150 years, being grown only in the backyard gardens of Italian communities.

Finally, in 1922, the D’Arrigo brothers, Stephano and Andrea, immigrants from Messina, Italy, began growing broccoli in San Jose, California. After harvesting their first crop, they shipped a few crates to Boston where it was well received. They followed that inkling of success by establishing their produce business as Andy Boy (after Stephano’s two-year-old son) and supporting a radio program and thereby featuring their own ads for broccoli. By the 1930s, the U.S. was infatuated with broccoli. The road to broccoli success wasn’t easy, in the late 1920s, author E. B. White penned an anonymous cartoon in The New Yorker magazine of a desperate mother trying to convince her child to eat broccoli, with the caption: “It’s broccoli, dear.” “I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.” Today, 90% of the broccoli grown in the U.S. comes from the Salinas Valley and Santa Maria California.

“I do not like broccoli and I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m President of the United States and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli. Now look, this is the last statement I’m going to have on broccoli. There are truckloads of broccoli at this very minute descending on Washington. My family is divided. For the broccoli vote out there: Barbara loves broccoli. She has tried to make me eat it. She eats it all the time herself. So she can go out and meet the caravan of broccoli that’s coming in.”  - President George H. W. Bush, March 22, 1990

Despite Mollie Katzen’s charming cookbook and recipe title, “The Enchanted Broccoli Forest,” there is no wild broccoli anywhere in the world. Broccoli was bred from kale, just like cabbage and cauliflower. Each was modified by early farmers for desired traits – so botanically they’re all identical, but in all other ways (including nutritionally) they’re not (Broccoli also has 60% more vitamin C and 60 times more carotene than Cauliflower, among other important nutritional differences). Broccoli’s in-between during a millennium of breeding and selection by farmers was a purple sprouting broccoli, very similar to the purplish flowering stalks of standard Kale plants, only these were kale plants bred for their florets and stems, not for their leaves.

Today, broccoli is the nutritional superhero of the vegetable kingdom! Broccoli contains comparably significant quantities of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, C, E, and K, folic acid, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, beta-carotene (?), zinc and dietary fiber. In fact, a pound of broccoli has as much vitamin C as 8 pounds of oranges, which helps your body absorb the 10% of your daily requirement of iron found in a single serving of broccoli. A single serving of broccoli also has just 25 calories, with 3 grams of protein and 3 grams of fiber. As well, a single serving has as much calcium as 4 ounces (a half glass) of milk and is easier to digest than calcium from milk. Broccoli’s vitamin A and Folic Acid content are even more astounding when compared to other good sources of these nutrients.

The National Cancer Institute, the USDA and others have found that broccoli and its kin contain a rare pectin fiber called calcium pectate that binds to bile acids holding more cholesterol in the liver and releasing less into the bloodstream thereby making broccoli equally as effective as some cholesterol lowering drugs. They also found that broccoli’s impressive nutritional profile including phytochemicals and indoles are responsible for boosting certain enzymes that help detoxify our bodies and improve the functioning of our innate immune response system as well as help prevent various cancers (including aggressive prostate cancer), diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis, and high blood pressure.

Further USDA research has shown that Broccoli’s wealth of the trace mineral chromium may be effective in preventing adult-onset diabetes in some people by allowing the insulin to perform better in people with slight glucose intolerance.

It’s important to remember that with broccoli, the longer it is boiled or cooked, the more of these vital nutrients are leached out and lost. Even 5 minutes of boiling results in a loss of 20% to 30% of the anti-cancer compounds and other nutrients. Besides eating broccoli raw, the best way to cook broccoli is to steam it for just 3 to 4 minutes to maximize the retention of anti-cancer compounds and vital minerals and nutrients – though it can also be baked, grilled, stir-fried, and deep fried (really!).  In addition, when preparing your broccoli, don’t cut away too much of the stem. Even the stems are chalk full of extra calcium, iron, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, and vitamin C, not to mention fiber!