Of the eleven species of palm trees native to Florida, the sabal palm is by far the most prolific, growing statewide from the Panhandle all the way to the Keys, in nearly every ecosystem along the way. Fittingly, the species has been the state tree of Florida since 1953 and provides a nostalgic treat for Floridians: swamp cabbage.
“Swamp cabbage is the heart or the growing point, called the apical bud, of the sabal palm,” says Taylor Walker, the horticulture manager of Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida, a historic botanic garden designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. that opened in 1929. There, on the eighty-five-acre woodland garden and the seven hundred acres of longleaf sandhill pine that the property manages, thousands of sabal palms grow.
The heart of sabal palm has fed Florida for millennia. The Seminole and Calusa ate it. More recently, it became a traditional dish of early settlers and cattle ranchers who became known as Florida cracker cowboys. And it’s always provided a tasty treat for Florida black bears roaming the state.
But its popularity doesn’t mean swamp cabbage is easy to come by, and unfortunately, harvesting the delicacy kills the plant. “Harvesting is labor intensive, for sure,” Walker says. First, the harvester must cut about three feet down from where the leaves emerge from the top—using a chainsaw because the leaf bases, colloquially called boots, are so tough. “Then, you cut that top foot off, where the leaves are closest to you because it’s too fibrous,” Walker says. “And then the bottom piece of that, where it looks more spongey, you cut that off because it’s very bitter.” Once all that is done, the white, desirable portion, marked with concentric circles reminiscent of a leek, remains. All told, a palm will yield about a two-foot block of swamp cabbage, no matter the size of the plant…