White Cabbage

Species name: Brassica oleracea var. capitata

Actually creamy yellow to light green in color, white cabbage may be eaten both raw and cooked. There are more than 100 different varieties of head cabbage. Growers remove the heads from the plant base and bury them in small field trenches. This serves two purposes. The first is to blanch the cabbage; by burying the cabbage, it is no longer exposed to sunlight, thus limiting the development of chlorophyll. The second is to insulate the cabbage from freezing so that cabbages may be harvested year-round. White cabbage is buried in the fall when it is fully grown, and is then preserved for the entire winter. To cultivate a green cabbage, the heads are simply removed from the field and sent to suppliers.