Is Cabbage The New Kale? Recipes And What To Know About This Versatile Vegetable

Here & Now resident chef Kathy Gunst says cabbage is inexpensive, good for you and can be used in a wide variety of ways. She brings three dishes for host Jeremy Hobson to try.

Italy was a strange place for me to fall in love with cabbage.

I never understood cabbage’s appeal until I traveled to Bologna in the early 1980s to take a cooking class with the late legendary cookbook author Marcella Hazan. She was explaining her culinary philosophy: that simplicity and sourcing the best, freshest ingredients are the secret to great food. On a slab of marble in front of her she placed a bottle of local red wine, a large, just-picked head of red cabbage and a bunch of pungent garlic.

I remember thinking: “Cabbage? What? I came to Italy to learn to make pasta and tomato sauce, crusty bread and gelato.” Marcella sliced the cabbage thinly, placed it in a hot skillet with olive oil and garlic and then added nearly