> [Mrs Beeton] mentions broccoli (purple and white). [...]
> I had not known that broccoli came in any color other than green.
> Can anyone comment on this?

Technically, the green stuff you usually see in supermarkets isn't
broccoli at all, but calabrese - the buds aren't generated from the
same anatomical structures. The older kinds of broccoli (quite often
purple) are spindlier and have more flavour.

We've grown purple broccoli here, and it makes a good garden crop,
since you can pick bits of it off the plant for months. That isn't
what a commercial grower would want to do, hence the oblivion the
plant has fallen into.

Unlike red cabbage, the purple colour vanishes quickly with cooking.
You have to treat it gently to keep it looking attractive.

Any recipe from before 1950 that called for "broccoli" would mean
the traditional variety - the adoption of calabrese is very recent.

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