Across Northern Europe, cabbage became a standard veg in everyone s pot from the fall of the Romans up to the present day. The earliest settlers on North America s eastern shores brought cabbage seeds with them from England, from the Netherlands, from Germany and Scandinavia. New Netherland, the colony established by the Dutch in about 1621, was cabbage growing country up and down the Hudson River and into neighboring areas. Citizens of the capital city of New Amsterdam, now New York, which was established in 1624, ate heartily of speck ende kool, pork with cabbage. At about the same time their German neighbors in Pennsylvania and New Jersey concocted vats of pepper hash pickled cabbage mixed with American peppers.
Most processed cabbage goes into the production of sauerkraut.
Florida is the leading state in the United States for winter and spring production of fresh market cabbage. Under usual conditions growers can harvest two crops of cabbage each season, beginning in November and ending in June. In the early 1920 s citizens of the U.S. ate a whopping 27 pounds of cabbage per year these days the average per capita consumption is about nine pounds. Cabbages are big business, associated with cool weather countries like Germany, the eastern European countries such as Poland, and Russia. For details, please email The Food Museum .