Romanesco

See also: romanesco

English

WOTD – 13 November 2015

Romanesco, an edible flower bud related to broccoli and cauliflower

Alternative forms

romanesco

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian romanesco (“of or pertaining to Rome”).

Pronunciation

(UK) IPA^(key): /ɹəʊ.məˈnɛs.kəʊ/
Audio (RP) (file)
(US) IPA^(key): /ɹoʊ.məˈnɛs.koʊ/

Noun

Romanesco (countable and uncountable, plural Romanescos)

Romanesco broccoli, a light-green edible flower bud of certain forms of Brassica oleracea var. botrytis, which is thus related to broccoli and cauliflower. Its form is a natural approximation of a fractal.
- 1995, Anne Raver, “Gandhi Gardening”, in Deep in the Green: An Exploration of Country Pleasures, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN:
  To be honest, this hasn't been my Garden of Eden year. […] The lettuce turned bitter and bolted. The Green Comet broccoli was good, but my coveted Romanescos never headed up.
- 2010, Maureen B. Fant, “The Italian Language of Food: Notes from a Translator”, in Richard Hosking, editor, Food and Language: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cooking 2009, Totnes, Devon: Prospect Books, →ISBN, page 117:
  The broccolo romanesco, once found only in Rome, is now being cultivated in Brittany and elsewhere, and people who had never heard of it a few years ago feel free to change its name to romanesco, as in, 'I bought a nice romanesco at the market; now what do I do with it?' (Actually for years Roman vegetable vendors called it broccolo romano and only romanesco recently.) […] Calling it simply romanesco is like calling French fries 'French.' This is serious because romanesco is needed to modify artichokes and zucchini, for which it indicates both local cultivation and a specific variety of vegetable – striated, firm zucchine romanesche and the large globe artichokes known as carciofi romaneschi.
- 2010, Geoff Stebbings, Growing Your Own Fruit and Veg For Dummies, Chichester, W. Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, pages 162–163:
  This beautiful vegetable looks rather like a green cauliflower designed by a mathematician and has lime-green 'spiralled' curds. The curds are nutty and tasty, and romanesco is worth growing just for its good looks. You can use romanesco in the same ways that you would normally use cauliflower but the flavour is sweeter and they look far more impressive. I try to leave them in large pieces when serving them because they're so beautiful.
- 2014, Gabrielle Langholtz, “Raw Squash Salad with Radishes, Manchego, and Lemon Vinaigrette by Seamus Mullen, Tertulia”, in The New Greenmarket Cookbook: Recipes and Tips from Today's Finest Chefs & the Stories behind the Farms that Inspire Them, Boston, Mass.: Da Capo Press, →ISBN:
  You can use squash standbys such as zucchini and crookneck in this recipe, but it's even more beautiful with a mix of colors and shapes, from sunny yellow pattypans to ridged Romanescos to the perfectly round, aptly named eightball.
- 2015 January 26, Mark Diacono, “How to grow and cook cauliflower, 2015's trendiest veg: Tricky to grow, boring to boil ... so why is the outmoded cauliflower back at the culinary cutting edge? [print version: Cauliflower power, 24 January 2015, pp. G1 & G3]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Gardening)‎:
  Romanesco was my gateway cauli and I've never stopped growing it. Not a variety as much as its own thing, Romanesco is a cauliflower to the French, a calabrese to the Italians. […] Visually, it may be the most remarkable thing you can grow: it is made up of lime-green mini-spirals that coil around themselves in fractal formation.

Translations

cultivar of cabbage, Brassica oleracea var. broccolo

Finnish: parsakukkakaali, romanesco

Proper noun

Romanesco

The dialect of the Italian language spoken in Rome.

Anagrams

Cameroons