Rapa catozza is a herbaceous brassica, a turnip of the Cruciferae, grown on an annual cycle. Regione Campania records a cultivation that is thoroughly local and of very long standing. What draws the table is simple: the leaves are the part people most often cook, a winter green rather than a curiosity in a catalogue.
It belongs to the flat country of the agro nocerino, the Caserta district, the Neapolitan hinterland and the Sarno plain. Plants stand in the open air, packed at about fifteen to twenty to the square metre. From November into February the cutting is done by hand, and because the crop throws new shoots, the same stand can be taken more than once after the first gathering.
Look for the species’ yellow flowers, held in tight corymbs or lyrate heads, and a leaf whose blade is lobed. Traditionally both the root and the green parts have fed people and livestock. That double use, and the habit of returning to the row through winter, is the practical thread: a brassica of the Campanian plains, still read as a leaf vegetable first.