Blue Cabbage

About

Common Names: Blue Cabbage
Classification: Culinary Vegetable
Description: A tight balled leafy vegetable cultivated throughout Annexea. The leaves of this plant have a dark blue colour and can be used as an inexpensive dye.

Rarity: Common
Distribution: Sub-arctic through Sub-tropical
Life Cycle: Flowering in the fall, cabbages disperse seeds after the first frosts.

Cultivation: Cabbages are harvested in the early to late fall
Culinary: Cabbages find use in a wide variety of dishes, including soups and stews, fried, fermented, shredded in salads,or used as leafy wraps for other mixed foods such as grains and meats.
Medicinal: Both mashed cabbage and cabbage juice finds use in anti-inflammatory poultices, and lineaments.
Other: The leaves of the blue cabbage find use as a simple blue dye.

Cultural: Cabbage is a ubiquitous food staple throughout its range. More specifically it features heavily in the history of Lo Ark, where is was an essential food during the siege during the Iskandean War of Independence in 135 YG. Cabbages following the successful capture of the town by insurrectionist forces, the ruling family of Ark Hiem, House Tiunsel, took the cabbage as a sigil representing enduring strength in hard times.
Religious: The cabbage is an important symbol in the Twinned Goddess religion. It is served as a staple food for pilgrims and distributed to the poor. Symbolically, the cabbage is used as a metaphor for the for the worldly realm, with the layers representing the morality of the treahni soul and growth of the spirit through the hardships of life.