Icon of Reflection: How are brussel sprouts grown?

Ever since I had to prepare meals regularly for hubby, I learnt so much more about food. Shopping for groceries is sometimes an adventure because I would come across stuff I never expected to learn.

Here's an example: This is a picture of a brussel sprout I took with my camera.

And here is a picture of a cabbage I found off the internet from healthandayurveda.com

They both look so similar, don't they? Size would be an obvious difference - the cabbage is relatively bigger. But are brussel sprouts "babies" that can eventually grown into cabbages?

I wondered because the word "sprout" reminds me of "bean sprouts", meaning a baby plant. So it could be possible that the brussel sprouts are actually "cabbage sprouts"? lol

Even the di-section (cut into half from the middle) of the cabbage looks exactly like the di-section of a brussel sprout, as you can see from the picture below. And that is because according to wikipedia, they both come from the same cruciferous family of vegetables:

Image from howstuffworks.com

But do brussel sprouts take root directly from the ground like the cabbage?

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Nope!

Here's what I bought from the supermarket recently, look at what it says:

Yes, Brussel Sprouts grow from a Stalk! Not individually from the ground like the cabbage! Can you believe it? lol I love being surprised!

Here's a picture of a brussel sprout plant from biologie.uni-hamburg.de

Haha, now that you know the answer, it is time to enjoy some photographs from us!

The brussel sprout stalk is a little longer than the length of our torsos.

Here's the size of it, placed beside the Wall Street Journal papers.

Without flash:

As you can see, the leaves are cut away from the leaf-stem, making it easier to transport.

But it would be the simplest to transport it without the brussel sprouts still attached to the bulky stalk right? That is why we often seen brussel sprouts in supermarkets already detached and packed into a container or a bag.

The reason why they sold an entire stalk (for US$4.99, which is cheap considering that it has so many sprouts on one stalk) is probably because brussel sprouts are fairly popular in the fall, for the Thanksgiving holiday. The brussel sprouts also taste best after experiencing the first frost of Fall. Those that are grown in temperatures that are too warm or in prolonged cold are said to taste quite bitter in comparison.

All I need to do before cooking it (boil it in soup or roast it in the oven) is to pluck the sprouts off the stem with my fingers. :-)

The round buds of the brussel sprouts grown from the corner in between the stalk and the leaf-stem. I thought of this imagery: If the Stalk is likened to a Torso, and the stem is the arm, then the brussel sprouts would be growing out of the "armpits" of the plant. Hee hee!