It would probably be safe to say that cabbage is as taken-for-granted a vegetable in the Middle Kingdoms as it is on our own Earth. The most common species—which grows happily from the Eorlhowe to the Highpeaks and from Arlen’s Westwall range to the borders of the Waste Unclaimed—is a near-identical twin to our own Brassica oleracea. The local equivalents to our plain “round cabbage” (B. oleracea capitata sp.) and the ridgier, leafier and curlier Savoy cabbage (C. oleracea sabauda) are probably geographically the widest-spread, with many regional variations of size, shape, flavor, and (sometimes) color. The Realms boast rosy pink, yellow, and purple varietals of both species, as well as an unusual Steldene orange-leaved variety—and (in the neighborhood of southern Darthen’s sacred Morrowfane) a curly-leafed cabbage of an unusually pure and intense cerulean-blue.

Due to their very broad seasonality, and their ease of storage by means such as clamping, cabbage dishes are likely to turn up at any meal from morning to evening… and roasting is one of the most popular approaches. Cabbage made this way is often eaten on its own, with small snacks to accompany it (as in our photos). It’s also a common side dish for meat and game, and often appears as a foundation ingredient for other more complex dishes.

In some rural areas, too, if there’s a baker in the local village (or if the tavernkeeper does the baking, which is a commonplace), cabbage is an important part of a favored country “market day” breakfast. Locals will bring their own cabbages up to the baker’s at the crack of dawn to be roasted with bacon or belly pork during the bake-oven’s first firing of the day—when it’s briefly run at its hottest, to heat the oven body through for the day’s baking. (Local idioms and adages often reflect this: cf. the Arlene emedhë ai’s annéndeun taen keishet, “[someone got] up with the baker and the cabbages” to mean “got up really early, but with the expectation of something decent to show for it.”)

And whether or not bacon is involved, this high-heat approach produces a cabbage dish with a pleasantly strong contrast between the crispy, slightly charred exteriors and edges—very much a feature, not a bug—and the tender, almost creamy interiors. Cabbage done this way is completely lacking in the strong overcooked aroma indicative of broken sulfur bonds that many people find so offputting. It also acquires a toasty, nutty quality that allies it well with all kinds of main dishes.

This technique—of oiling and spicing, sometimes with the addition of flavored oils—and high heat, is widely used in the Four Realms right across most of the other relatives of cabbages, from broccolis and cauliflowers through to the thickleaf mustards, cruxroots, hilarionids, fingerstems, darapaéni, and numerous other edible species which the Kingdoms’ world has and ours does not. 

In fact this great multiplicity of edible cabbage relatives raises some questions: not for people from the Kingdoms, who’d find it entirely natural, but for the extrauniversal visitor. When the vegetable geneticists arrive (as they doubtless eventually will) and take a closer look at the Brassicaceae of the Four Realms’ world, they’ll almost certainly start coming up with pointed questions about why the Kingdoms appear to have so many more species of hardy, edible brassicas than our own Earth does.

Our own Brassicaceae family already has an unusual number of variants due to what geneticists call a “whole genome triplication event” in the distant past (between 5 to 9 million years ago, according to some experts). But the Kingdoms have many more cabbage-family relatives: nearly three times more (an estimated thousand genera, in total, and at a conservative estimate, some twelve thousand species). And for two planets whose biological developmental histories normally map very closely onto one another, so marked a divergence is peculiar.

In this context it becomes interesting to note that there remain some odd old story and folktale fragments—mere scraps of lost legends from before the re-emergence of humankind—telling how when the Goddess made the garden that would someday be the world, the first thing She planted to make it fit for human beings to live in was cabbages. And the memory of the mercifully ever-more-distant age of terror, cold and famine during which the deadly Dark overshadowed their Earth is never far from the minds of the Kingdoms’ historians, storytellers, and magic-users.

There has long been a belief among the lorekeepers of the Silent Precincts that at some point soon after the Dark first fell, some desperate but acutely forethoughted adept (or circle of them), now nameless save to the Goddess, may well have spent the last of their Fire—and perhaps even their Deathword—on altering that entire botanical family’s genetic structure in such a way as to make it far hardier and more fertile (by becoming even more robustly self-pollinating), so that it might better survive the terrible climatic changes about to occur. That tremendous wreaking would potentially have enabled many more children of humanity to survive to see the day when the Dark would be destroyed at last. Therefore the memory of the person or persons who enacted that great Firework is commemorated at the Morrowfane, to which the inhabitants of the Brightwood’s Silent Precincts make a yearly autumnal pilgrimage. Those unknown adepts are seen as embodying a mighty example of the admonition that each person must act as the Goddess, and for Her, when there is great need and She cannot be seen to be acting Herself.

With this in mind, when the cabbage geneticists do turn up, it will be very interesting to see whether their investigations turn up an additional triplication (or even quadruplication) event between five and twenty kiloyears before the Kingdoms’ present day. If they do—and if that event shows signs of having been sufficiently sudden—this finding could not only help confirm the existence of the so-called Saviors of the Plants,  but could also conceivably make it possible for the first time to arrive at some kind of determination as to when the Dark actually first fell: a datum still long lost, and on which the Dragons can cast no light, since their arrival ended it.

However, whether or not this finding will cast any light on why the Fire-blue cabbages of the Morrowfane region are so extremely good, it’s impossible to tell.

Meanwhile, see the right-hand tab above for the recipe.

The ingredients:

• • • 1 small round, tightly-headed cabbage
    • 3-5 tablespoons oil for tossing/coating (…Which oil is entirely up to you. Sunflower, canola or similar cooking oils will work well; so will olive oil—often used in the Kingdoms)
    • Coarse salt and fresh-ground or coarse pepper for seasoning
    • Ground spices or similar flavorings to taste (allspice, chiles, etc.)
      

The method:

Assuming you’re going to roast your cabbage as soon as you’ve finished preparing it: Turn your oven up to 220C / 475F. If it will go as high as 250C, which some ovens do these days, set that temperature. The highest possible roasting temperature produces the best results for this approach.

Then: procure a smallish to medium-sized cabbage, and a good sharp knife.

Halve the cabbage (so that you’ll have a stable object to work on) by cutting from the top through the root. This will help it hold together while roasting.

Then cut the halves into sharp wedges (again, through the root). Doing so will give you the maximum contrast, when roasting, between the (thicker) tender insides and the (sharper) edgy bits, which char more enthusiastically.

When you’ve finished cutting the wedges, get a big bowl and put some neutral-flavored oil in it. Then add the wedges to it one by one, turn them gently, and place them on a foil-lined baking sheet.

Once the wedges are on the baking sheet, it’s time to season them.

The flavored oils come first. We used sesame oil…

…chile oil (the kind you usually buy to put on ramen, from our local Asian market)…

…and pumpkinseed oil (a big favorite all through the northern parts of the Four Realms, where pumpkins have the longest growing season).

After the extra oils (if you’ve opted for them), the wedges get salted with coarse salt (Maldon-style salts are a good choice) and pepper—also as coarsely-ground, and as freshly-ground, as you can get it.

At this stage we also like to sprinkle on some chile flakes—as mild or as hot as the potential audience enjoys.

The wedges now go into the oven for 35-40 minutes, or until the faces of the wedges are nicely colored and the edges are charring. (Your timings may be shorter if you’re using a convection/fan oven, so keep an eye on things.)

And here’s how they’ll look! Unprepossessing, perhaps… but tasty with anything.

Enjoy!