Way back during the infancy of the internet, around 1994. I cooked my first "sinigang" (a Filipno Dish, caserole dish with tamarind.) Knowing from my early childhood nannies used to cook using "kangkong" as its prime veggie. I Couldnt find kangkong in our trusty vegie bin, instead i found "pechay." Knowing it has a bitter taste quite light compared to a "Mustasa" (spinach). Plugged the veggie in the caserole, and voila! i thought it woudn't taste good, but. The sour tamarind, fights its way inside the pechay's veins, in turn, made the veggie's bitter taste into a sour kangkong replacement. Eversince it became my favorite veggie, just for sinigang dishes only.
And the year 1995-1996 passes, the days where half-life from valve start of, after the decline of starcraft from blizzard, where soon the Mod Counterstrike came into the gaming scene. I used the name "pechay" during this days of glory with the said first-person shooter network-gaming.
and eversince the name stucked, even from old friends who were my comrade at arms in the era of counterstrike.
also from my longest and oldest running pop email since 1996, the name is still there. ;p
And By definition, courtesy of Wikipedia.org as follows;
Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa) is a Chinese leaf vegetable commonly used in Chinese cuisine. The vegetable is related to the Western cabbage and of the same species as the common turnip. There are many variations on its name, spelling, and scientific classification.
History
Chinese cabbage has been cultivated for over six thousand years in China. Brassica rapa seeds have been found in jars in the excavated New Stone Age settlement of Banpo. They were a common part of the diet in southern China by the 5th century.
The Ming Dynasty pharmacologist Li Shizhen studied the Chinese cabbage for its medicinal qualities. Before this time the Chinese cabbage was largely confined to the Yangzi Delta region. The Chinese cabbage as it is known today is very similar to a variant bred in Zhejiang around the 14th century. During the following centuries, it became popular in northern China and the northern harvest soon exceeded the southern one. Northern cabbages were exported along the Grand Canal to Zhejiang and as far south as Guangdong.
They were introduced to Korea, where it became the staple vegetable for making kimchi. In the early 20th century, it was taken to Japan by returning soldiers who had fought in China during the Russo-Japanese War. At present, the Chinese cabbage is quite commonly found in markets throughout the world.
Varieties
There are two distinctly different groups of Brassica rapa, and a wide range of varieties within these two groups. The binomial name B. campestris is also used.
The Pekinensis group is the more common of the two, especially outside Asia; names such as da baicai (lit. "large white vegetable"); petsay/pechay (Tagalog); Chinese white cabbage; baechu, wongbok, nappa, or napa, cabbage; and hakusai (Japanese: 白菜) usually refer to members of this group. Pekinensis cabbages have broad green leaves with white petioles, tightly wrapped in a cylindrical formation and usually, but not necessarily, forming a compact head. As the group name indicates, this is particularly popular in northern China around Beijing (Peking).
The Chinensis group was originally classified as its own species under the name B. chinensis by Linnaeus. When used in English, the name bok choy typically refers to Chinensis. Smaller in size, the Mandarin term xiao baicai ("small white vegetable") as well as the descriptive English names Chinese chard, Chinese mustard, celery mustard and spoon cabbage are also employed. Chinensis varieties do not form heads; instead, they have smooth, dark green leaf blades forming a cluster reminiscent of mustard or celery. Chinensis varieties are popular in southern China and South-East Asia.
0 comments:
Post a Comment