InterestingFacts: You Can Hear Cauliflower Growing

 

Original photo by Katya123ua/ Shutterstock

You can hear cauliflower growing.

To most grocery shoppers, there’s nothing particularly exciting about cauliflower. While the dense and crunchy stalks of this cruciferous plant are great as a side dish or snack, they’re consumed far less than the most popular produce-aisle picks (potatoes, tomatoes, and onions). However, some farmers might say that cauliflower has at least one unique and unexpected property that’s worth your attention: If you listen closely, you can hear it growing. While most plants are silent, cauliflower is able to eke out a barely audible sound thanks to how quickly it grows. The vegetable can add as much as 1 inch per day under the right growing conditions. That rapid expansion means the florets of the plant’s popcorn-like heads often rub against one another as they grow, creating a noise many farmers call “cauliflower creak.” Some agriculturalists describe the tone as a soft squeak, while others say it’s best described as the faint popping noise made by Rice Krispies cereal when doused in milk. However, there are occasions when cauliflower fields reach a more detectable decibel, like in 2015, when British farmers were graced with optimal weather conditions for their cauliflower harvests. That year, some cauliflower cultivators alerted vegetable enthusiasts to what they believed would be the loudest cauliflower creak in decades. Note:  The above comes directly from their website.