Do Brussels Sprouts Taste Better These Days? Definitely—Here's the Reason

The fourth season of Leave It to Beaver begins with the unforgettable line: “Beaver, eat your Brussels sprouts.”

This comes from Mrs. Cleaver, who spends much of the episode trying to coax her son into eating them using every parental tactic she knows. He finally manages to eat one, thanks to a timely back slap from his older brother Wally, and walks away from the ordeal with a crucial lesson: Parents nag because they care.

As for Beaver’s new opinion on the tiny vegetables, it doesn’t quite reach the level of love—his thoughts end with, “I think it’s gonna stay down there,” essentially meaning, “I don’t hate it enough to spit it out.”

The classic childhood dislike of vegetables—especially Brussels sprouts—has become such a well-known TV cliché that Beaver’s struggle might stir up nostalgic memories, even for those who never had a problem finishing a serving themselves. Or maybe you did, and assumed you simply grew out of it as your taste preferences evolved.

But there's more to the story than just untested taste buds: Brussels sprouts genuinely were much worse back then.

The Bitter Reality

“In the late 1960s, our industry shifted to mechanized harvesting, which required plants to mature uniformly along the entire stem,” Brussels sprouts farmer Steve Bontadelli explained to MEL Magazine in 2021. The best sprouts for this method came at a cost: They were “incredibly bitter,” he added, “and we ended up turning off an entire generation.”

Negative opinions of Brussels sprouts began to fade in the 1990s, primarily because the sprouts themselves became less bitter. As NPR reports, a team of Dutch biotechnologists led by Hans van Doorn identified the chemical compounds responsible for the sprouts' sharp taste—a pair of glucosinolates named sinigrin and progoitrin.

After searching through old seed stocks for ones with lower levels of these strong compounds, Dutch seed suppliers embarked on a long-term project to cultivate the perfect plant: one that produced Brussels sprouts that were not too bitter and could grow quickly enough to meet modern production demands. Their success played a key role in reviving the once-despised vegetable, particularly in the U.S.

A New Perspective

Culinary stars contributed too—such as David Chang of Momofuku, whose Brussels sprouts with kimchi purée and bacon inspired chefs to get creative. The 1990s also saw the rise of the Food Network, which gave viewers a behind-the-scenes look at how to prepare Brussels sprouts and other divisive vegetables in a way that actually makes them taste delicious.

The magic usually involved oven-roasting, which gradually began to replace boiling as the go-to method for preparing vegetables in Western cuisine. As Slate’s J. Bryan Lowder explained in 2014, this shift took time because ovens were traditionally seen as tools for baking bread and other goods (and occasionally cooking meat), while vegetables remained stovetop fare. Influential cookbooks like Joy of Cooking and The Fannie Farmer Cookbook helped cement this tradition by recommending methods like boiling, steaming, and sautéing for vegetables.

According to Lowder, chefs Johanne Killeen and George Germon unintentionally sparked the oven-roasting revolution: When they opened their restaurant, Al Forno, in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1980, their kitchen had only an oven. Roasting vegetables turned out so well that they continued to do so, later recommending the method in their 1991 cookbook Cucina Simpatica. By 1993, roasting had become a trend in restaurant kitchens, with New York Times food critic Florence Fabricant even writing a thorough review of its advantages for everything from fruits and vegetables to seafood.

When enhanced with fish sauce (another innovation from Momofuku) or rich Balsamic vinegar and roasted to crispy perfection, even a Brussels sprout with a strong bitterness likely beats a bland one that's merely boiled. Thanks to Dutch innovators who unlocked the secret to its flavor, we now enjoy the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, poor Beaver will never experience this pleasure.