Can anyone tell me what the relationship is between the stir-fried rapeseed and the rapeseed flowers on my plate?

Winter has gone and spring has arrived. Under the shining sun, the fields are covered with yellow rapeseed flowers... Oh no - maybe they are colorful rapeseed flowers.

Screenshot source @Jiangnan Metropolis Daily

I really want to go and see

The rape flowers are in bloom, and it’s time to go out for an outing in the wild. Nothing makes urban people more excited than taking a spontaneous rape flower viewing trip.

Did you know that the rapeseed flowers that cover the fields are actually just a type of rapeseed?

Rapeseed is a general term, and the "rapeseed family" occupies half of the vegetable stalls in the vegetable market, such as the popular Chinese cabbage, Chinese cabbage, cabbage, mustard greens, etc.

To understand this family, we need to start with the classification of plants. Let Tadpole help you sort it out.

The three major brassicas of the Pangda family

There is a type of plant under the order Brassicae of the class Dicotyledons whose flowers have four petals arranged in a cross shape surrounding the pistil. They are the favorite of bees, namely the Cruciferae family.

There is a type of plant under the Cruciferae family, which includes many important oil, vegetable and fodder crops. Its flowers are generally yellow, its roots are tuberous, and its leaves are rosette-shaped. They are the genus Brassica (tái).

"薹" originally refers to the slender stems of plants such as rapeseed, garlic, and leek. It is used exclusively in botanical species relationships. It can be replaced by "薹" when referring to specific vegetable names, such as 菜芽, 姜芽, 奸芽, etc. 奸薹 is the scientific name of rapeseed.

As the main species of Brassica, rapeseed is a typical oil crop. In addition to being used for viewing and cooking, its main use is oil extraction. The main oil crops in northern my country are peanuts and soybeans, while rapeseed is the main crop in southern China.

There are more than 20 cultivars or varieties of Brassica, which can be summarized into three types: Chinese cabbage, mustard and kale. Brassica rapa includes subspecies such as Chinese cabbage and Chinese cabbage.

The characteristics of the Chinese cabbage subspecies are that the stems and leaves are not separated, and they form long balls, which is the representative of Chinese cabbage. The characteristics of the Chinese cabbage subspecies are that the stems and leaves are distinct, and they do not form pods or balls. Representative vegetables include Chinese cabbage (called "green vegetables" by southerners) and purple cabbage moss.

The choy sum, also known as choy core and choy moss, which is loved by Cantonese people, belongs to the cabbage-type Brassica rapa and is a variant of the edible flower stalks and young leaves of pakchoi (green cabbage).

Chinese cabbage.

Image source: Tuchong Creative

Rapeseed (officially known as green vegetables) fried with mushrooms Source: Tadpole Jun

Brassica juncea is an annual herbaceous plant, named for the strong spicy taste of its seeds and leaves. Representative vegetables include mustard greens, Chinese mustard, kohlrabi, and mustard sprouts.

Comparison of three types of Brassica Source: Chinese Botany

The stems and leaves (or part of the leaves) of Brassica oleracea are formed into a round ball. Representative vegetables include cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, rapeseed (which I call rapeseed), turnips, mustard, broccoli (a variety of cabbage), etc.

Among them, it is worth mentioning mustard and turnip, which are similar to radish in appearance, but have different tastes and growing environments.

Mustard greens have a strong mustard flavor and a rough texture. They are generally used to make pickled vegetables and are rarely used to make soup or stir-fry. Turnips taste like dry noodles when chewed, and residents in Sichuan, Tibet and other places often mix them with sauerkraut noodles as a side dish.

Turnips that look like radishes Image source: Wiki commons

Radish

Image source: Tuchong Creative

Hybrid Evolution

The large family of Brassica has two main origins: the cabbage type and the mustard type originated in China, India and other places in Asia, while the cabbage type originated in the Mediterranean region of Europe.

China has a history of cultivating rapeseeds of 7,000 to 8,000 years. Carbonized remains of rapeseed seeds were unearthed at the Dadiwan site in Qin'an, Gansu, 8,000 years ago. Cabbage seeds were also found at the Banpo cultural site in Xi'an, 7,000 years ago.

Records of rapeseed have already appeared in the Pre-Qin period more than 2,000 years ago. Tao Hongjing, a famous doctor in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, wrote in "Famous Doctors' Records" that "Brassica is a vegetable eaten by humans."

In order to distinguish them, the ancients called cabbage "Brassica rapa" or "cabbage", and called mustard greens or mustard greens "cabbage". Cabbage was cultivated in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period; cabbage became one of the most commonly eaten vegetables in the south during the Northern and Southern Dynasties; in the Tang Dynasty, Chinese cabbage was the most common popular vegetable in the north and was regarded as a top-quality vegetable; in the Song Dynasty, different varieties such as white cabbage, purple cabbage and ox-tripe cabbage appeared. Many Tang and Song poets wrote about cabbage, such as "Early cabbage cut into fat ox tripe" (Han Yu of the Tang Dynasty), "The cabbage picked up from the snow is as delicious as honey lotus root and even richer" (Fan Chengda of the Southern Song Dynasty).

During the Ming Dynasty, Chinese cabbage was introduced from my country to the Joseon Dynasty and soon became the main ingredient of Korean kimchi. In the popular TV series "Dae Jang Geum", there is a plot where the protagonist tries to grow cabbage introduced from the Ming Dynasty.

Image source: pexels

Mustard greens, as an edible vegetable and condiment, were first seen in the "Book of Rites" more than 2,000 years ago, which said "For sashimi, use onions in spring and mustard in autumn" and "Fish sashimi with mustard sauce".

More than a thousand years ago in the Tang Dynasty, scholars began to use "葑菜" to refer to mustard greens. Since the Song Dynasty, people have discovered that 葑菜 has the effects of stimulating appetite, relieving gas, removing dampness and detoxifying, and included it in traditional Chinese medicine books such as "Zhenglei Bencao" (written by Tang Shenwei); Li Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty recorded the medicinal value of mustard greens in detail in "Compendium of Materia Medica".

The homeland of Brassica oleracea is in Europe. The remains of cabbage seeds were found in Wangjinhuju, Switzerland more than 7,000 years ago. At that time, the cabbage had a well-developed root system and tall plants, and did not have the spicy taste of mustard.

In the 16th century, cabbage was introduced to China from Europe. Due to its cold resistance, strong adaptability and high yield, it was soon widely cultivated in various parts of the Central Plains. Later, it was continuously hybridized with Chinese native Brassica oleracea, gradually forming the various cabbage-type Brassica oleracea we see today, such as mustard tuber and kohlrabi.

Turnip shape diagram, Zhang Chunfang drawing source: Wiki commons

Hard to distinguish but still loved

Due to their common growth, similar shapes, and arbitrary naming, there has long been no professional distinction between Brassica plants, and they are easily confused in daily life. For example, the dictionary Flora of China explains Chinese cabbage and Brassica rapa separately, while most dictionaries combine them together; for another example, Chinese cabbage is called green vegetables by southerners, but many people also call green leafy vegetables green vegetables.

The difficulty in distinguishing them does not affect people's love for Brassica plants, especially rapeseed.

In addition to the fact that rapeseed oil extracted from rapeseed flowers is rich in nutrients and plays an important role in people's health, it also brings people a visual feast in early spring.

Finally, let me ask you a question: What do you call the vegetables in the picture below?

Image source: Tuchong Creative

References:

[1] Cheng Xiaogen, Research on Optimization of Rapeseed Flower Tourism Products in Wuyuan, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, 2019.

[2] Yu Rong, Study on the comparative advantages of ecological resources in typical rapeseed tourism festivals, Chinese Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, 2016.

END

Editor/Heart and Paper