Cabbage

Cabbage keeps 1–2 months refrigerated as a whole head — by a wide margin the longest-lasting leafy vegetable, and one of the best-value things in a fridge.

Store the whole head unwashed and untrimmed in the crisper. Leave the loose outer leaves on: they are sacrificial, protecting the tight interior from drying and bruising, and you peel them off when you use it.

Do not cut it until you need it. A cut head keeps only about a week, wrapped tightly in plastic, and the cut face browns.

Cabbage tolerates cold well and is not damaged by the coldest part of the fridge.

Fresh cabbage freezes poorly. Fermenting it into sauerkraut or kimchi is the traditional and far better preservation route.

Cabbage is built for storage in a way almost nothing else in the produce aisle is. It is a tightly packed terminal bud — dozens of layers of leaves wrapped around a growing point — and that structure is essentially self-packaging.

The outer leaves take all the damage, drying and toughening into a protective shell, while the interior stays sealed, humid, and untouched. The head has a very low surface-area-to-volume ratio, so water loss is minimal. Its metabolic rate is also low compared with a leafy green. This is why cabbage was a staple winter vegetable in cold climates for centuries before refrigeration existed.

Cutting the head destroys all of that at once. The exposed face begins losing water and browning through enzymatic oxidation, and the sulfur compounds that give brassicas their character begin converting into the more pungent versions responsible for the smell of old cabbage.

The glucosinolate chemistry is the same as in broccoli and Brussels sprouts. A strong sulfurous smell means the head is breaking down.

To use an old head, peel off the outer layers until you reach firm, pale, tight leaves — the interior is frequently perfect when the outside looks poor. Discard if the core is soft and brown, the head is slimy, or it smells strongly of sulfur.