Green Vegetable Trends: Broccolini May Be the New Kale, and Look Out for Kalettes and Caulilini Next

South China Morning Post ^ | 18 Feb, 2021 | Andrew Sun

[nickcarraway]

*Kale is celebrated as a superfood and has been a trendy must-have for a number of years *But there is a new contender: broccolini, a Chinese broccoli hybrid, is all the rage

Is broccolini the new kale?

Produce and ingredients are not immune to the whims of fashion. Foods also go in and out of style, changing every few years. If you think vegetables are evergreens – pun intended – you’d be wrong.

For a time, kale was the must-eat food that was on every shopping list. It was no longer solely for vegan yogis and detoxing tai tais – the trendy green crossed over from being a healthy superfood to a grocery luxury that anyone could incorporate into salads and cooked dishes.

It’s so ubiquitous now, I had a Lunar New Year takeaway poon choi (a “basin meal” comprising layers of different foods, a southern Chinese tradition) from a hotel in Hong Kong and it included kale among the vegetables we could cook in the remaining broth. I guess kale instantly makes anything healthy, even if the rest of the dish consists of meat and fat.

Growing up, I never even knew this green existed. When I first heard about kale, I assumed it was just another vegetable that granola-munching hippies ate in communes. Little did I know it was often used as a green decoration on Pizza Hut salad bars. It’s ironic now to think that the kale was there for display while the nutrition-free iceberg lettuce was served for consumption.

But in the past decade, it’s become a precious commodity, and 2012 was the height of its popularity. The US Department of Agriculture noted that year that kale production had increased 60 per cent since 2007. Bon Appétit magazine anointed 2012 as the “year of kale” and

[gundog]

Really easy shopping, but I see inflation creeping in.

I used to live in Eugene, OR. There was a defunct supermarket that some Orientals bought. We called it Food Hell. Imagine a supermarket with shelves practically to the ceiling, that stocked maybe 100 random products, never seemed to know what they would have on any given day, and distributed everything around the store as if there was actually stuff occupying the empty space in between. A whole aisle, empty, but for a couple of flats of yellow mustard. On the plus side, you could see a long way across aisles.

[bgill]

LOL, there must be a national surplus of mustard. Our store would have an entire aisle of Whataburger (why?) mustard but nothing in the bread aisle to squirt it on. Crazy. Or half the frozen section filled with Whataburger fries but if you wanted potato chips instead of fries, you were out of luck.

One, they know they’re the only game in town.

Two, this is mainly a retirement area except during tourist season. Neither of those groups complain much.

Three, I know for a fact the shelf “fresh” bread came in frozen but I can only suspect we got the garbage the ritzy Austin customers refused to accept. Fuzzy fresh strawberries. Who’s to know if that single 8 count package of tortillas hadn’t spilled on the floor in Austin, ya know?

Some guy even had a site dedicated to him griping about what was never ordered but was advertised in the weekly ad.

They also would take any thing that had a coupon off the shelves. Again, why? Eventually, they stopped taking coupons. Just weird.