The World’s Most Hipster Vegetable You Haven’t Heard About: Kale Brussels Sprouts
When I first read that the tasty, meaty, and amazingly versatile Brussels sprout was basically a baby cabbage, I was crushed. Because cabbage is disgusting. Kale, on the other hand, is also pretty disgusting, but only if not steamed or sautéed or prepared in any way to make it palatable to humans instead of rabbits. Like Brussels sprouts, Kale is also trendy as F.
For one British vegetable breeding company, this similarity was reason enough to combine the two greens into perhaps the most hipster-beloved Frankenveggie of our times: a kale and Brussels sprouts hybrid called the Kalette (also, BrusselKale). Since 1995, Tozer Seeds has worked on perfecting the little mutant, at first in hopes of boosting Brussels sales in the U.K., but now in an effort to create green, leafy, kale-Brussels-AND-hybrid food gold.
To be available in the U.S. come fall, Kalettes promise to provide “a fresh fusion of sweet and nutty” and “the best flavors of kale and Brussels sprouts” through their weirdly pretty miniature kale leaves on Brussels stalks. Slate’s L.V. Anderson did complain, though, that the vegetables’ flavors are not the draw, but their textures. We figure we’re good as long as we can still #hashtag the crap out of them.
H/T + PicThx Modern Farmer