More because of poor cooking practices than anything else, some people, including one American president, simply do not like broccoli, and they let you know it. But a recent poll of middle school students revealed that this generation not only likes broccoli, stir-fried, please, but prefers it to other more traditionally kid-friendly vegetables.

Clearly an Italian-named plant, broccoli actually may have been developed in Italy from the cabbage plant, by the gifted farming people who preceded the Romans. These were the Etruscans, who first came to the northern and central portion of today's Italy in about 1100 BC, from the east. Very little is written about broccoli's early days. One food historian has suggested that because the Romans wrote nothing about the creation of or arrival of broccoli it seems likely it was there, in place, when they conquered Etruria, today's Tuscany, about 200 BC. The famous Roman cook and creator of recipes, Apicius, was said to prepare it well. A typical Roman evening meal might well have included some meat or fish, a grain pancake with onions and broccoli. Emperor Tiberius, who ruled from 14 BC to 37 AD when Apicius held forth, had a brocc-loving son named Drusus. Evidently the Emperor had to warn Drusius he was overdoing his consumption of broccoli. Hard to imagine? Perhaps he dipped it in honey.

The word most of the world uses for this plant, broccoli, comes from an Italian word meaning branch or arm. Indeed the broccoli plant does give the appearance of reaching up, perhaps in search of a creamy cheese sauce.

The historical record on broccoli is so scant that it leaps from the Roman Empire to 16th century France with large holes in between. In 1533 Italian noblewoman and food fancier Catherine de Medici married the king of France, Henry II, moving to Paris from her native Tuscany, with loads of vegetables, and Italian chefs with her. Among them, broccoli. (And green beans, artichokes, cabbage and more)

By 1721 broccoli was being cultivated in England. Even though often known at that time as Italian asparagus, broccoli became popular in Great Britain primarily because the trend-setting fancy French liked it. If the French and the Italians liked it, then the U.S. farmer president Thomas Jefferson was bound to have it in one of his gardens. On May 27, 1767 Jefferson noted in his garden book the planting of broccoli along with lettuce, radishes and cauliflower. As he began the book in 1766 this was presumably his first planting of these vegetables.

Americans of Italian origin were likely growing broccoli in home gardens from the turn of the 20th century on but the crop was not widely known in the States until some years later. Two brothers, Stefano and Andrea D'Arrigo from Messina, Italy, arrived in the U.S. in the early 1900's. In 1922 they started their own produce company in San Jose, California. Their specialty was vegetables and fruits familiar to the Italian-American community. Broccoli in particular put them on the map. They were the first commercial growers in the West to successfully raise and ship boxloads of the plant. Their broccoli was developed from seeds sent from Italy by their father. Soon they created a distinctive brand name for their broccoli-Andy Boy-and put a photo of Stefano's two year old son, Andrew, on the label. Theirs was the first fresh produce company in the U.S. to use a brand name in their advertising.