A Repertoire of Slaw
Cole Slaw comes from the word "koolsla" which means "Cabbage Salad" in Dutch.
Cabbage was domesticated sometime in the ancient world prior to 1000 BC. That's about the time the Bronze Age was becoming the Iron Age. Ancient Egypt was in decline and the Phoenicians and the Israelites were on the rise. By the time Rome began its rise to power in the 8th Century BC, cabbage was a well established cultivated crop and considered a table luxury.
Next to Cole Slaw, perhaps the most famous Cabbage dish is Sauerkraut. Although it is a German word and the Dutch are generally given credit for its discovery, there is no evidence to support this theory; it is documented that fermented cabbage dates back to the early period of the Western Roman Empire around 400 AD.
Cole Slaw, on the other hand, is a considerably younger Cabbage dish, arising in the 18th Century, documented in a 1770 Dutch Cookbook. But modern interpretations are younger still, owing to the invention of mayonnaise in the 1800s.
Today, it would be hard to imagine a barbecue or picnic without Cole Slaw on the menu. It's estimated that American enjoy 1.5 Billion servings of Cole Slaw each year and arguably the most popular way Cabbage is consumed in the US.
Here are a few favorite Kitchen Tapestry Cole Slaw recipes to get you away from the more common mayonnaise-based Cole Slaw to which we've all become accustomed:
