The joy of cabbage stalk

I am writing this while eating a huge cabbage stalk.

When we were first married I was horrified to know that when Bern made Hungarian cabbage rolls (with beef and pork and rice) covered in diced tomatoes, she threw away the stalk of the cabbage.

Cabbage stalk is a delicacy to me.

When my grandmother fried cabbage (which was often) she gave the stalk to whatever grandchildren were around. We used to fight over it. A little saucer sprinkled with salt and a cabbage stalk was surely what the manna the Israelites ate in the desert must have tasted like. Shear ambrosia to us cousins.

My mother did the same thing--with no hateful older cousins around. She would chop the cabbage for frying (fried cabbage to Appalachians is a food staple, not unlike gravy, a food group.

The stalk would be mine, in a little saucer with salt sprinkled on it. The best thing to do was lick the cabbage and rub it through the salt so the salt would stick.

Cabbage stalk is crisp and clean and wondrous (especially covered with salt). Hey, people eat slaw, don't they? Cabbage stalk is slaw on steroids without the mayo.

I made corned beef and cabbage with potatoes and carrots and onions for dinner a couple of nights ago. I was shopping for dinner (Bern and I are very continental--we shop each day for dinner rather than shopping for the week) and saw some corned beef. Why wait to St. Patrick's Day? I asked myself and bought it. We ate what's called a New England boiled dinner for two nights and I had some corned beef hash for breakfast the second day and had some for lunch as well. Enough of a good thing....

But I saved the cabbage stalk and have been eating it as I type, with salt, of course.

If you've never tried it, I recommend it greatly. Heaven....