Cabbage has never been sophisticated, and it will never be trendy. People often complain about it, calling it boring or smelly or dull, but you could never denounce it as stuck-up or poncy. It began as a weedy native of the Mediterranean basin, a tough-leaved, hardy little bastard that liked lime and salt and grew on wind-battered chalky landscapes like the southern coast of this country where, untamed, it survives today. No doubt the first hunter-gatherers ate it with fish, as perhaps had earlier primates, and humans only managed to domesticate it 2,500 years ago.



That single plant has given us more variety within one genus than Crufts. From it and an Asian relative we've Frankensteined a dozen major varieties of cabbage (savoy, jersey, white, red, round, pointed and flat), as well as cavolo nero, brussels sprouts, cauliflower ("cabbage with a college education," said Mark Twain), broccoli in all its delicious forms (calabrese, romanesco, PSB), the leafy greens of pak or bok choi, edible chrysanthemum, water spinach, rape, rocket, mustard greens and mustard spinach, chinese leaf, huazontle, collards, turnips and kale. More than 400 varieties of brassica are now grown for their roots, heads, seeds or leaves, or simply because they look trippily beautiful.

The Greeks were fond of cabbage, and ate it with thyme and salt. Diogenes, a chipper hermit who abandoned all worldly pleasures to live in a tub and bemoan the world's absence of honest men, is said to have eaten nothing but cabbages and water; he lived to be 90. The Romans recommended cabbage as especially healthy, which it is, and as a protection against drunkenness, which it isn't. Other varieties of cabbage began emerging in earnest during the early middle ages, with red – particularly popular in Britain – appearing in the 15th century. Cabbage's milder relation cauliflower only found general popularity after the great gardener Quintinie introduced it to Versailles in the 1600s, but the motherplant has always been vital.

Cabbage thrived in European cooking firstly because it tolerated miserable winters. Since it stores so well (a whole white cabbage will sit happily in the fridge salad drawer for a few months), it's likely to have saved many thousands of lives through human history. That's why it is so important to the rustic, earthy cooking of Germany, Scandinavia, Poland, Russia and – this being St Patrick's Day week – Ireland. A notorious and unedifying British slur references the German fondness for fermented cabbage, but we eat just as much cabbage as they do. And cabbage is essential to almost all Asian cooking. Shredded and raw, it brings a clean pepperiness to the heavy, deep-fried breaded pork dish tonkatsu. It's almost obligatory in Chinese stir-fries, to which it brings a savoury and refreshing crunch and in which it finds a happy harmony with soy and oyster sauces.

Poor old cabbage is famous for emitting a foul stench when it's overcooked, the institutional mephitis of school and ward. This reek derives ultimately from substances called glucosinolates, defences that bring raw cabbage a bitter or mustardy taste designed to deter predators. That's why coleslaw is appetisingly peppery, and why certain brassica leaves such as rocket and mustard greens carry an appealing bite. Fermenting cabbage for, say, sauerkraut transforms these compounds into less bitter, less pungent substances, and gives the vegetable a milder taste. When you cook cabbage for a long time, some of the glucosinolates form trisulphides, which have an unhappily eggy whiff. Mrs Beeton recommended boiling cabbages for up to 45 minutes, which must have made her kitchen smell like the devil himself had guffed in it. Cabbage should only be cooked as long as is necessary to make it tender and seal its colour; stir-frying rather than boiling it will also release fewer trisulphides.

It's hard to overstate the Korean fondness for kimchi, the beguiling dish of fermented, spiced cabbage served at every meal. Korean astronauts take it into space with them. Choucroute garnie, a celebration of cabbage's compatibility with pork, would be one of my desert island dishes, and chou farci is greater than the sum of its parts. The dimpled texture of savoy cabbage is brilliant for anything with a sauce. At Momofuku in New York they serve a kimchi and blue cheese croissant, which sounds like a trainwreck but is supposedly rather good. How do you take your cabbage?