Why Brussels sprouts taste better now

I didn’t grow up in a brussels sprouts family, yet through the powerful force of cultural osmosis, I somehow grew up believing that they were always just a little gross. It’s not really a surprise why: Much like cafeteria lunches or liver and onions, brussels became a popular culinary punchline among the jungle gym set. Just the name evoked images of emotionless housewives boiling them over high-heat, rendering the little cruciferous vegetables bloated, soft and gaseous, destined to be scraped into the trashcan or offered to a family dog under the table. 

But then sometime in the 2010s, alongside the explosion of New American and New Southern cuisine, brussels sprouts underwent some reputational repair. Chefs moved away from straight boiling them and started to slow-roast them in halves or quarters, coaxing out a really appealing caramelized sweetness that masked the vegetable’s inherent bitterness. They coated them in butter and bacon and maple syrup. And this happened over and over and over again until overpriced maple-glazed brussels were as much a cliché of hipster gastropub dining as Mason jar cocktails and food served on wooden planks. And the thing is — I loved them. 

Whenever I’d go out to eat, I’d always order brussels sprouts if they were on the menu. I bugged chefs I knew about how they made theirs so good; at Fat Lamb, in Louisville, Ky., for instance, they glazed their brussels in a gochujang hoisin sauce, while Asheville’s former Gan Shan Station made Dan Dan-flavored brussels sprouts, inspired by the Dan Dan noodles recipe in the chef’s well-loved copy of “Mrs. Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook.”