South European kales: A Cross country, cross cultural research

BaSeFood (Sustainable exploitation of bioactive components from the Black Sea Area traditional foods) is a EU funded program in which local crops are being considered and investigated, comparing their uses, composition and related traditional foods, in a cross-country perspective. Within the BaSeFood partner countries, kales are present along the Black sea coast of Turkey, in the northern Apennines of Italy and in the north of Portugal. The available literature on the kale populations of these areas indicates glucobrassicin as a characteristic component of their glucosinolate profile. A research was planned to comparatively investigate several aspects of kale distribution, present and potential uses, traditional foods and bioactive composition. In the three countries considered, kales are extensively used and locally valued, but are lesser known as major vegetables. Although differences in the present knowledge of kale traditional uses do exist, common patterns, due to the peculiar ecological characteristic of kales, in combination with the social conditions of some growing areas, are clearly identifiable. Local recipes are being collected, and examined also in the perspective of scaling-up production. Winter soups are the main form of utilisation, corresponding to the need of combining vegetables with carbohydrate supplying ingredients. Seed samples were collected from representative populations and are being used to plant a comparative field trial, aimed at investigating glucosinolate and phenolic profiles in a common environment. Finally, some targeted experiments about the retention of bioactive components during the preparation of a common dish in the three countries (kale soup) are being planned.