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Food and Drinks
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Andrew Sun
Mouthing Off
Andrew Sun

Green vegetable trends: broccolini may be the new kale, and look out for kalettes and caulilini next

  • Kale is celebrated as a superfood and has been a trendy must-have for a number of years
  • But there is a new contender: broccolini, a Chinese broccoli hybrid, is all the rage

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Broccolini, a cross between broccoli and Chinese gai lan could overtake kale as the go-to trendy vegetable. Photo: Shutterstock
Andrew Sun
Andrew Sun has dabbled in many shades of the media spectrum for 25 years, from college radio, TV, print and online columnist to starting film festivals, managing music labels and authoring food books.

Is broccolini the new kale?

Produce and ingredients are not immune to the whims of fashion. Foods also go in and out of style, changing every few years. If you think vegetables are evergreens – pun intended – you’d be wrong.

For a time, kale was the must-eat food that was on every shopping list. It was no longer solely for vegan yogis and detoxing tai tais – the trendy green crossed over from being a healthy superfood to a grocery luxury that anyone could incorporate into salads and cooked dishes.
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It’s so ubiquitous now, I had a Lunar New Year takeaway poon choi (a “basin meal” comprising layers of different foods, a southern Chinese tradition) from a hotel in Hong Kong and it included kale among the vegetables we could cook in the remaining broth. I guess kale instantly makes anything healthy, even if the rest of the dish consists of meat and fat.
Kale was the trendiest green vegetable and was ubiquitous for a few years. Photo: Shutterstock
Kale was the trendiest green vegetable and was ubiquitous for a few years. Photo: Shutterstock

Growing up, I never even knew this green existed. When I first heard about kale, I assumed it was just another vegetable that granola-munching hippies ate in communes. Little did I know it was often used as a green decoration on Pizza Hut salad bars. It’s ironic now to think that the kale was there for display while the nutrition-free iceberg lettuce was served for consumption.

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But in the past decade, it’s become a precious commodity, and 2012 was the height of its popularity. The US Department of Agriculture noted that year that kale production had increased 60 per cent since 2007. Bon Appétit magazine anointed 2012 as the “year of kale” and Time magazine included it on its list of top 10 food trends.

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