RE - Broccoli: A Verb in Need of Meaning

posted: *11 dec 2021*

This post is in reply to ew0k, link below:

ew0k's original post

What broccoli should mean

I think at this point we need to look back at the origin of broccoli.

According to Wikipedia, broccoli is a vegetable, technically a kind of cabbage, that was originally cultivated somewhere around 600 BCE in the Roman Empire (probably Sicily).

wikipedia page on broccoli

Oddly enough though it didn't spread through the rest of mainland Europe until the 1700's and it didn't make its' way to North America until somewhere in the 1800's with waves of Italian immigrants. In other words: broccoli is a recent contender on the world stage compared to most mainstays like most other traditional cabbages and wheats. Even things like maize corn were known before broccoli was proliferated throughout Europe.

That being said I think to "broccoli" might be something to do with the long-term travel and proliferation of ideas and concepts. You could say, for example, that the idea of Oktoberfest broccoli'd into the American culture through the immigration of Germans into the Midwest of the United States during the mid 19th and early 20th centuries.

Or it could just be a euphemism for nuclear warfare, a la a mushroom cloud. "Wow! We bombed the hell out of Nagasaki 3 days ago. You could see the broccoli from the bomber for hours!"

I dunno. Thoughts, anyone?