A few months ago I was unaware of this leafy, fast-growing vegetable. Now I’m growing it, recommending it – and giving away as much as I can
M
y neighbour Sharon was having no luck growing broccoli. So I gave up growing broccoli before I even started. If she couldn’t, I wouldn’t. Then she gave me six little plants, something called, mysteriously, aztec broccoli. It’s not actually broccoli, she told me. The plot thickened. Not being the kind of horticulturist who likes to get bogged down in details, I bunged them in the ground and hoped for the best. Before I knew it, they were knee, waist and then head high. A jungle was taking shape. It was time to start eating it.
It’s always nice to come across something not that many people seem to know about. I got shakes of the head from a friend with a marvellous allotment in York; a seed supplier from Suffolk I sat next to on a train to Swansea and a woman who won nearly every prize at a horticultural society event to which I’d been invited to give out trophies. I was starting to wonder if this was some kind of hoax.
It turns out, I read somewhere or other, that aztec broccoli is known as huauzontle in Mexico and as Chenopodium nuttalliae in Latin. It’s a Mexican native plant from the goosefoot family, related to quinoa and amaranth. Very little of which meant anything to me, but I read on to find out it is regarded by some as a superfood and is all edible, including its broccoli-like flower shoots.
