Brussel sprouts. Some love them. Some hate them. But how many people really know what a brussel sprout is? Where does a brussel sprout come from? How do they make us poop green?
Tonight my room mate and I cooked brussel sprouts and he made me aware of the general public's lack of knowledge of what the brussel sprout is when he asked when the brussel renaissance happened. Some think brussel sprouts simply started growing on the shelves of grocery stores and appearing in empty crates being shipped around the world. But the real history of the brussel sprout is much more interesting, and darker.
In 1936 an upper-class family by the name of McKinley in western Kentucky were going through a serious taste drought. They were fairly well off and could afford plenty of food, but being the taste-cravers they were they were in dire need of something new. The daily monotony of steaks and peasant's tears were not enough to satisfy their cravings. It was getting so bad that little Lyle Mckinley was putting food coloring on random pieces of furniture and chomping into them. Rumor has it he even once tried the family pig, alive and raw.
One day when Gerald McKinley, father figure of the family, was skipping home from his job of staring down children, he encountered a peculiar human-like figure climbing out of a nearby well. Curious, he wandered up to the figure, and the closer he got, the more startled he was.
The creature was a little shorter than a full grown man, maybe 4 feet tall, green, grey and brown with strange growths all over him. His head looked somewhat like a broccoli head but with breathtaking eyes and a nose similar to that of his stupid cousins. The creature was dusting himself off, rather violently, when he saw Gerald approaching.
"Scary skippers! How do you make me squeeze?" The creature said, giving off what appeared to be a smile.
"Umm.. jump me farther. I missed your calling card" Gerald said, in formal greeting.
"General Bombosa Brussel, Sr. But my skimpies call me Sprout! I love scabing"
The creature seemed friendly and rather childish. Gerald imagined that whatever species this thing was; it must be the equivalent of a child. He looked rather frail as well- the creature didn't seem to have any bones. Rather, a more vegetable-like body. Still, Gerald was hesitant.
After the awkward lull in the conversation, all the while of which Sprout was awkwardly smiling and "wagging" back and forth, he broke the silence and said "HERE! Try one of my scabies!"
With that, Sprout ripped off one of his warts; seemingly without pain. He then threw it at Gerald, who almost threw up upon instinctively catching it. However repulsed he was, he was still having horrible cravings for something new, and chucked it into his mouth without thinking.
It was delicious. It was everything he ever wanted. So many flavors hit his mouth at once, and he even pooped himself a little bit. He didn't care about the poop, though; he just wanted more.
"Bombs over biscuits! That was crippling. Where do you dwell, Sprout?" Gerald asked, curious about where the strange creature came from.
Sprout led Gerald down the well and to Gerald's surprise he found a gigantic underground world of these strange green people. He was introduced to a few of them, all of which shared the same carefree, childish demeanor as Sprout. He tried another's wart, and it was even better than Sprout's. Then, Sprout cooked one over a primitive, seemingly never-ending fire that burned at the center of the cave system, and it was even better.
Gerald returned home and told his family about the encounter. They didn't necessarily believe him at first, but they were so taste-craved they joined together and marched down into the well in the middle of the night. Each family member equipped with two chainsaws, they murdered the entire species of Scabies-people, and bagged up their warts for later retrieval. They left one male and female alive, chained them up, and forced them to reproduce.
Almost a century later, we as a human race enjoy brussel sprouts all around the world. Little do most people know, it is a product of a horrible genocide and there is still a couple of Scabies-people chained up in a cave in Kentucky, reproducing for our taste buds.
I hope you enjoyed this brief lesson in history. Please subscribe for more. If you want to contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars towards my history lessons, leave a comment and I'll tell you where to send it.
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