romanesco

noun

1. (alt-of, countable, uncountable)Alternative letter-case form of Romanesco.
2. (countable, uncountable)Romanesco broccoli, a light-green edible flower bud of certain forms of Brassica oleracea var. botrytis, which is thus related to broccoli and cauliflower. Its form is a natural approximation of a fractal.

   “To be honest, this hasn't been my Garden of Eden year. […] The lettuce turned bitter and bolted. The Green Comet broccoli was good, but my coveted Romanescos never headed up.”

   “This beautiful vegetable looks rather like a green cauliflower designed by a mathematician and has lime-green 'spiralled' curds. The curds are nutty and tasty, and romanesco is worth growing just for its good looks. You can use romanesco in the same ways that you would normally use cauliflower but the flavour is sweeter and they look far more impressive. I try to leave them in large pieces when serving them because they're so beautiful.”

   “You can use squash standbys such as zucchini and crookneck in this recipe, but it's even more beautiful with a mix of colors and shapes, from sunny yellow pattypans to ridged Romanescos to the perfectly round, aptly named eightball.”

   “Romanesco was my gateway cauli and I've never stopped growing it. Not a variety as much as its own thing, Romanesco is a cauliflower to the French, a calabrese to the Italians. […] Visually, it may be the most remarkable thing you can grow: it is made up of lime-green mini-spirals that coil around themselves in fractal formation.”

name

1. The dialect of the Italian language spoken in Rome.