Broccoli, a plant of the Cabbage family, Brassicaceae, is a cool-weather crop eaten boiled, steamed, or raw. The Roman natural history writer, Pliny the Elder, wrote about a vegetable which might have been broccoli and some recognize broccoli in the cookbook of Apicius, but its history is unclear. Broccoli was certainly an Italian vegetable long before it was eaten elsewhere.Photo credit: pdphoto