Summertime salad

Coleslaw is perfect accompaniment to grilled meats or picnic fare.

The comedian Buddy Hackett used to tell the story about a man who didn't know anything about farming but who bought a farm anyway. A friend asked him what he was going to plant. "Razor blades and cabbages," the would-be farmer told him. "What could you possibly get out of that?" his friend asked. The landowner replied, "Coleslaw."

You can't blame that man for experimenting with "cutting-edge" agricultural methods. After all, coleslaw is the perfect accompaniment to the grilled meats, chicken, and fish that so often are the mainstays of summer meals. What is more, it's a great picnic food because, unlike salads made with lettuce, it will keep a long time after it is dressed. No wonder Bon Appetit magazine calls it the season's favorite side dish.

The term "coleslaw" comes from the Dutch "koolsla," a combination of the words "kool" meaning cabbage and "sla" meaning salad. The word has also been morphed into "cold slaw," a term usually regarded as a misnomer, though, as the "Oxford Companion to Food" notes, its use in the United States predates the use of the term coleslaw by more than 25 years.

Whichever term is used, the fundamental ingredient in coleslaw is, of course, cabbage, which the "Cambridge World History of Food" tells us has been cultivated since before recorded history. It's been around so long that legends and myths have sprouted up with it.

The ancient Greeks, for example, believed that Zeus was responsible for the origin of the vegetable. As the "Oxford Companion" explains, he worked himself into a sweat struggling to reconcile two conflicting prophecies and from that sweat sprang cabbage.

Another legend, related by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, gives the credit to King Lycurgus of the Edones. Driven mad by Rhea, goddess of the earth, he mistook his son Dryas for a vine stock and cut him to pieces. Cabbages are said to have grown from the sand where his tears fell.

Regardless of which myth they subscribed to, the ancients regarded cabbage as health food. Pythagoras recommended it. So did Cato. He especially liked it raw, dressed with vinegar, a dish that must have been similar to coleslaw, and he regarded it as the secret to long life. He lived to be over 80. Diogenes ate nothing but cabbage. Granted, his rival Aristippus claimed that cabbage dulled the senses and cut life short, but Aristippus died at 40. Diogenes lived until he was 90.

Some have even linked cabbage to fertility. In France, where, perhaps not coincidentally, folklore maintains that babies are found in cabbage patches, it is customary to bring just-married couples cabbage soup the morning after their wedding night.

Likewise cabbage has been prescribed over the ages for a variety of ailments. Cato, arguing that the medicinal value of cabbage surpasses that of all other vegetables, recommended it as a digestive aid and as a laxative. He also swore by a mixture of cabbage juice and wine inserted into the ear as a treatment for deafness. Similarly, in the 14th century eyedrops made of cabbage juice and honey were promoted as a way to improve vision. The vegetable has also been professed as a cure for laryngitis and, when applied as a plaster or dressing, a treatment for sciatica, varicose ulcers, open fractures, and even gangrene. (Reportedly some 40 members of Captain Cook's first expedition in 1769 were saved from gangrene when the ship's doctor, inspired as he was about to eat a dish of cabbage and bacon, applied cabbage compresses to their wounds.)

The Greeks and the Romans regarded cabbage as a preventative against drunkenness, a notion which the "Oxford Companion" rejects out of hand, but to which Toussaint-Samat gives some credence. She observes that the B vitamins contained in cabbage leaves can have a soothing effect on someone who has imbibed too heavily and she notes as well that researchers have successfully used a substance extracted from cabbage in the treatment of alcoholics.

Miracle food or not, cabbage is clearly good for you. It's high in fiber and fat-free. Just a cup and a half contains 70 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C. As a member of the Cruciferae family (so-called because its flowers are suggestive of a Greek cross) it contains certain anti-cancer compounds and can help lower cholesterol. (Cauliflower, what Mark Twain called "cabbage with a college education," is another member of the same family.)

With all of this going for it, you'd think cabbage would be revered, but it never has been, except, perhaps, in Russia where it is the national food and possibly in England where, as Walter Page once quipped, they have only three vegetables-and two of them are cabbage. Elsewhere, as Toussaint-Samat remarks, it has not been deemed very sophisticated. No doubt the unpleasant odor it produces during cooking is partly responsible for this judgment. So too, conceivably, is its reputation in the intestinal department. As Toussaint-Samat puts it, "The cabbage is inclined to cause wind . . ."

Nonetheless, the cabbage has come a long way from the original wild plant which bore few leaves and didn't even have a head. There are now 400 varieties ranging from round to pointed, smooth-leafed to wrinkled-leafed, and white or green to red. Used to make coleslaw, especially the trendy variations showing up on menus today -- with their dressings ranging from simple vinaigrettes to blue cheese-laced mayonnaise and incorporating additions such as carrots, peppers, beets, pickles, onions, raisins, ginger, and even pineapple -- they just might have you thinking, with apologies to Lewis Carroll, that in the vegetable kingdom cabbages are kings.

Coleslaw variations

As the "Joy of Cooking" says, there are probably as many versions of coleslaw as there are cooks. Here are three trendy variations adapted from Bon Appetit Magazine.

Ingredients:

4 cups cabbage

2 tablespoons oil

3 tablespoons vinegar

Directions:

Slice cabbage thinly. Toss with vinegar and oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

For Mexican Coleslaw use green cabbage and add 1 thinly sliced red bell pepper, 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro, 1 small seeded and minced jalapeno chili, and 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin; increase oil to 3 tablespoons and substitute fresh lime juice for vinegar, reducing amount to 2 tablespoons.

For Asian Coleslaw use Napa cabbage and add 1 tablespoon sesame seeds, 1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions, 1 tablespoon peeled and minced fresh ginger, 1 teaspoon sugar, and 1 teaspoon sesame oil; use peanut oil and rice vinegar. For Italian Coleslaw use red cabbage and add 1 trimmed and chopped medium fennel bulb, 1/2 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley, 3 tablespoons drained capers, and 2 minced garlic cloves; use extra-virgin olive oil and substitute fresh lemon juice for vinegar.

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