Cabbage has entered the chat - Nostalgia Cooked - No.1

Nostalgia Cooked
June 9, 2026
No. 1

“Hands, please”

A vegetable I have been eating my whole life turns out to be the breakout star of 2026. The history of an ingredient most of us take for granted. And a handful of things worth your time on a Tuesday.

Coffee, then read on.

— Chef Tim

Cabbage is having a moment.

The trend reports have landed, and we have an unlikely winner. Cabbage is on every list.

The New York Times just put cabbage on its list of healthy foods. It has a feature in Vogue. It’s on the catwalk, in designer ads, and Martha Stewart called it the breakout vegetable of 2026. I gave it a Time Magazine cover. In a world of rising prices, a two-dollar head of cabbage stands among some of the most expensive designer goods in the world.

This is, on its face, a little ridiculous. Cabbage has been the same cabbage since long before any of us were born. Stuffed, shredded, simmered, slawed. It was never a moment. It was just there.

It is good for you. Cabbage delivers about ten servings, plus fiber, vitamin C, vitamin K, and the prebiotics that keep your gut in working order. Sailors from the 1600s and Martha Stewart agree.

But here is what I think is actually going on, and why I find this trend more interesting than tiresome. The history of cabbage is the history of getting through winters. It is the vegetable of people who could not afford to be precious. It traveled in barrels with sailors, packed in salt as sauerkraut, and kept the crews of the Royal Navy alive on long voyages.

Now, in a year when everyone is talking about how groceries cost too much and how nothing feels reliable, a vegetable that has fed humans through famine and war for ten centuries is suddenly the toast of fine dining. Maybe we are not so foolish after all. Maybe we are just remembering.

Buy one this week. They are still two dollars.

In every kitchen line up, chefs and sommeliers provide the context about a new ingredient, a new dish, something ahead of service. One of the origins of umami is a good story you can take to your next dinner party. It’s also something you can put inside your next great staff meal.

The Romans loved anchovies so much they turned them into a sauce, fermented them in the sun, and drank the runoff. That sauce is called garum and it was on every table in the empire from Britain to Syria.

When Rome fell, garum went with it, but the anchovy did not. It moved quietly down the coast of Italy, across Provence, into Spain and Portugal, where it was salted, tinned, and passed from grandmother to granddaughter.

Here’s the thing most people don’t know.

The anchovy is not a flavor. It is a function. When you melt one into a pan of garlic and oil, it does not taste like fish. It disappears. What it leaves behind is a kind of savoriness the Japanese would later call umami and the Romans already knew by taste. It’s why your grandmother's Sunday gravy tasted like something your mother's did not. She used anchovies. She may not have told you.

The Caesar salad has one. A proper puttanesca has six. If you have been afraid of the little tins, this is the week to buy one. The Ortiz brand in the yellow wrapper is worth what it costs. Open it. Put one on toast with butter. Close your eyes.

You will understand immediately why they have lasted two thousand years.

Few wines love cabbage as much as Grüner Veltliner. Its crisp acidity and subtle white-pepper spice brighten sweet cooked cabbage while standing up to the salty punch of anchovies. Poured alongside warm toast, it’s the kind of humble pairing that reminds us some of the best combinations were discovered long before fine dining ever existed.