Chinese Cabbage

Also Chinese Celery Cabbage, Napa, Nappa, Pe-Tsai, Wong Bok, Peking Cabbage, Shantung Cabbage, Hakusai, Chihli Cabbage, Michihli, Chinese Leaf, Chou de Chine

Yes, all the above are commonly used names for this worldly vegetable—and there are a half-dozen other less common ones. To further confuse the unwary, the cabbage that wears them has two distinct forms—one long and narrow with leaf tips branching outward; the other shorter and stouter, with leaves curving inward. When Liberty Hyde Bailey, probably the greatest horticulturist of modern times, attempted to make order of the Brassicas in the early part of the century, he had 2,400 pages of family trees to sort out and they’re still being organized by contemporary taxonomists this minute. When it is your turn to choose between a mere two similar cabbage forms, just point, for the impossibly general rubric “Chinese Cabbage” might land you a bagful of different green things, all of which go by this name (most commonly, bok choy).