If cabbage smells, you don't know how to cook it properly. It shouldn't. Like a lot of cuisine, it was being overcooked.
I love cabbage, brussels sprouts and broccoli, and they are all extremely good for you, the same family of vegetables, I think.
Home cooking enjoyed being in vogue for quite awhile (they would jazz it up with trendier seasonings and vegetables, et voila!), and for me it still does. I always thought corned beef and cabbage was it's own thing - the traditional "boiled dinner" was pork spareribs or a pork shoulder I think. At least it was in our house (my grandmother was from Nova Scotia). Corned beef and cabbage isn't a traditional Irish meal, but I believe when immigrants came to this country, beef was more plentiful, and they when they became more prosperous, they adapted the new ingredients they had here into their recipes.
I don't eat meat anymore (I may have a taste), but my Japanese-American husband makes corned beef and cabbage like nobody's business - the best (his father taught him. We think there are Ohara's somewhere in the family line). We just follow the package directions - add the cabbage, red bliss potatoes, carrots, onion at the appropriate times, and that's it! Maybe add a bay leaf or throw in a few peppercorns. We serve it with a good mustard and/or horseradish, and slices of soda bread (with caraway seeds and raisins in it). And this year, a Belhaven Ale. Cheers, and enjoy!
