Cabbage, Cauliflower and Broccoli

I visited a family friend in San Jose yesterday, and had the unique experience of eating broccoli tambli.

Though tamblis are one of my favorite foods, I had never imagined it could be made with broccoli. In the course of my conversation, I was told that broccoli in fact is a hybrid variety of cabbage and cauliflower, and that it wasn't a species in itself.

That stumped me. And being a nerd, I decided to find out more about it from the god of information - Wikipedia.

Sure enough, it turns out that not only broccoli, but cauliflower too is a hybrid variety of cabbage! Cabbage is the grand daddy of them all!

The words for cabbage and cauliflower in Kannada (ele kosu and hoo kosu) actually do suggest that they have the same root, but I don't know if that knowledge led to the terminology in Kannada. Fascinating!