Nina and I both recently learned of the existence of this "romanesco" vegetable when it showed up as a small constituent in Bean So Green. It is the same species of plant as cauliflower, broccoli, kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and kohlrabi--just a different cultivar. We were both fascinated by its alien appearance. Nina later found some fresh romanesco for sale at a local grocery store, and cooked that up for us. Then she found this item.
At first I assumed that it must be a new product to Trader Joe's, because surely I would have noticed it before. But no, upon doing a little internet archaeology, I discovered that it was on the market at least as early as 2010. Maybe it hasn't been stocked in the Asheville TJ's for a while? Or maybe I really did unwittingly pass it by a dozen times or more. Who knows?
Anyway, Nina bought it and cooked it up for a recent dinner at her house. I liked it, didn't love it. The cauliflower was OK, but not especially high quality stuff, in terms of being flavorful. I thought the romanesco was even more boring; I had to concentrate to notice that it had any independent flavor at all, after mentally subtracting the garlic-butter sauce that it's packed in.
So I'm still interested in romanesco, but not so much in this particular packaging.
For an enthusiastic endorsement, however, see this post from the "Eating at Joe's" blog. The guy sounds like he's ready to make sweet, sweet love to his TJ's basilic, and maybe ask it to marry him.
Will I buy it again?
Maybe someday. And I won't mind at all if Nina serves it up again. As I said: liked, didn't love.
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