Of Kings and Cabbages

Russian and Irish immigrants are said to be responsible for introducing the cabbage to the Atlantic shores of the new world, while Chinese immigrants brought the Oriental version of cabbage to the Pacific shores.

Enter the railroad. As Irish and Russian settlers moved westward their cabbage plants moved also. With the expansion Eastward of the Railroad, Chinese workers edged their gastronomical favorite along with iron and steel, coal, wood and smoke. Soon, the two, East and West, met where the golden rail spike dug deeply into the earth--along with cabbage gardens.

Boil, chop, and fry some cabbage with a little butter, pepper and salt then lay it on slices of rare-done beef, lightly fried...the Leprachauns will dance for joy at such the morsel to savor. Called Bubble and Squeak, this entry in The American Domestic Cookery dated 1808 tells how the Little People use cabbage as an incantation.

Cabbage broth, it is said, possesses not only healing powers, (as in chicken soup!) but true magical powers as well. When saved from the meat (meaning the cabbage) and sipped long and slowly one can be transported into the Land of Faerie. Cabbage liquid, sometimes called liquor, protects the one who imbibes it from mockery, scorn and ridicule.

Between 1750 and 1751 cabbage along with other garden abundances such as beans, peas, carrots, parsnips, turnips, onions, asparagus and sweet and Irish potatoes were supplied to the city folk of the better sort of people who here live very well and genteel lives... because of the commodities the country folk have for sale.

The Moravian community, believing that idleness is the sepulchre of the living man, took to planting acres of cabbage. From their busy-ness with cabbage planting and cooking comes the famous Moravian Cabbage Salad with its superfluous dressing.

Cabbage also found its way into everyday word usage. Cabbage is an old term for odd bits of cloth left over after making up suits and other garments, appropriated by working tailors as perquisites. Hence a tailor was sometimes nicknamed "cabbage" and to cabbage means to pilfer. In England, Ireland and Colonial America, it was used in schoolboy slang.

The copyright of the article Of Kings and Cabbages in Folklore is owned by Virginia Marin. Permission to republish Of Kings and Cabbages in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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