Pity the poor old sprout: 86% water, 9% carbohydrate, 3% protein, 2% sundry other stuff and, according to a good many people, 100% disgusting. The sprout’s main crime, it appears, is to be one of a small number of British crops that can be harvested in December, a fact that has helped usher it on to festive dinner plates the length and breadth of the country.
Bitter as a Boxing Day family argument, as unloved as discarded wrapping paper (and the celebrity autobiography that was once inside it), some view the Brussels sprout as an aberration, a reminder from the universe that we can’t have nice things unless we have horrid things, too.
But is that really true any more? Whisper it, but perhaps the humble sprout has simply been the victim of terrible PR. So get ready to hold your nose, suppress your gag reflex and read on.
