BROCCOLI ROMANESCO - 25 HEIRLOOM ROMANESCO SEEDS

ROMANESCO BROCCOLI, CALABRESE ROMANESCO, BROCCOFLOWER. 

This has to be one of the most beautiful vegetables around - a true ‘Objet d'Art’. Each complex, symmetrical head features whorls of pointy, chartreuse green ‘florets’, in a complex, bewitching design, an amazing example of phyllotaxis - the fractal patterning that can appear in nature.

An old Italian vegetable variety that's been rediscovered, Romanesco cauliflower is often called romanesco broccoli, calabrese romanesco or minaret especially in Italian recipes. It is sometimes called broccoflower, a name is also applied to green-curded cauliflower cultivars. It is also known as coral broccoli.

Romanesco is delicious with a flavour is somewhere between broccoli and cauliflower, with a sweet nuttiness that is bereft of the slightly bitter edge cauliflower can have, children tend to like it for this very reason. If you cook it whole, dunking it in boiling water for a few minutes until tender, it's one of the most impressive greens you can serve.