![]() This is the Fibonacci spiral, a series of arcs whose radii follow the Fibonacci sequence. If you ever have the chance to study a tight head of Romanesco up close, you’ll see a spiral emanating from the center point, along which all the smaller florets are arranged. The tight clusters that form the head are called florets (or small flowers). Worth a read: 11 Vegetables You Grow That You Didn’t Know You Could Eat The part of the broccoli that we typically eat - what we call the head - is actually the flower bud of the plant (although broccoli leaves are just as edible and delicious, and can be cooked like any other green). Last year I picked my Romanesco a few days too late, and its famous spiral had already started to unravel, resembling an average cauliflower.īut this year, I remembered to harvest it earlier (and thankfully, it weighed much less than the 25-pound Broczilla that I grew many years back). Did you know it’s a beautiful example of a Fibonacci fractal in the natural world? Romanesco broccoli is an intricate work of art and a mathematical marvel. ![]() How to find the Fibonacci fractal in Romanesco broccoli I love to roast or grill the heads whole and drizzle them with sauce (my favorites include a creamy feta dressing, balsamic vinaigrette, and carrot top salsa), and for special occasions I make the Roasted Romanesco and Broccolini Salad With Wilted Arugula from The No-Waste Vegetable Cookbook. The plant is grown and cooked like your run-of-the-mill broccoli, but its pointy fractals are too pretty to puree or dice into little chunks. If you can’t source it locally, you can try an online natural food co-op like Azure Standard, which carries organic Romanesco broccoli all summer. Romanesco is typically found in better supermarkets, health food markets, and farmers’ markets from spring through early fall. Recommended reading: Decoding Your Garden Seed Catalogs If you buy from one of my links, I may earn a commission.īaker Creek Heirloom Seeds and Botanical Interests both carry an open-pollinated heirloom variety, and a few seed catalogs carry F-1 hybrids like “Veronica” Romanesco brooccoli. Disclosure: All products on this page are independently selected. Several varieties of Romanesco broccoli exist, and some farmers have crossed open-seeded varieties with each other to produce hybrids that are faster growing. Read more: The Stories Behind Heirloom Seeds The cultivar is both an heirloom and a hybrid, depending on the specific seed you have. (Rome, from which the plant gets its name, is the capital of Lazio.)Ĭalled broccolo romanesco or cavolo romanesco by the Italians, it was grown in the countryside and didn’t make its way to the United States until the 20th century.īotanists believe that Romanesco broccoli was developed through cross-breeding, and its naturally occurring pattern was reinforced by human selection over centuries. It dates back to the 15th or 16th century, where it was thought to originate in the Lazio region of Italy. ![]() Romanesco tastes like a nuttier and crunchier version of cauliflower, and in my opinion, is more flavorful than either broccoli or cauliflower. It is its own cultivar and by the looks of it, this head-turning vegetable is truly in a class of its own. That means Romanesco broccoli (which is sometimes called Romanesco cauliflower) is neither a broccoli nor a cauliflower, though it’s often grouped botanically with cauliflower (Brassica oleracea var. (If you remember high school science, plant taxonomy goes like this: kingdom, order, family, genus, species, and sometimes, subspecies.) Romanesco belongs to the genus Brassica, which is unusual in that instead of individual species, it bundles all of its members (such as broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, mustard greens, kohlrabi, and turnips) into one species, making them all Brassica oleracea. It’s an edible flower (just like heads of broccoli or heads of artichoke) that we eat as a vegetable. The chartreuse bud looks like it was sculpted by a fine artist with its distinctive spiraled pinnacles. Few things in the garden are more mesmerizing than the Italian heirloom plant known as Romanesco broccoli.
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