Broccoli feels like a natural vegetable — but it doesn’t exist in the wild. It was created by humans through centuries of selective breeding from a single plant species: Brassica oleracea, also known as wild cabbage. Ancient farmers in the Mediterranean carefully selected plants with larger, denser flowering buds and thicker stalks. Over generations, this intentional selection transformed a modest coastal plant into the broccoli we recognize today. What’s even more fascinating is that broccoli i