The rapini has a pleasing abundance of names: raab, rapa, rapine, rappi, rappone, broccoli rape, broccoli de rabe. It isn't broccoli at all, it would seem, but something more akin to turnip greens. I always think it is the plant after which Rapunzel was named. You will recall that she gets her name from the plant in the witch's garden next door that her pregant mother spies out the window and must eat:
Eines Tags stand die Frau an diesem Fenster und sah in den Garten hinab. Da erblickte sie ein Beet, das mit den schönsten Rapunzeln bepflanzt war, und sie sahen so frisch und grün aus, daß sie lüstern ward und das größte Verlangen empfand, von den Rapunzeln zu essen.
But apparently Rapunzel is rampion and not my rapini at all. Not that we should get hung up on the Grimms's version. In Italian she was Petronsinella already in 1637 in the Pentamerone of Giambattista Basile, named after petrosine, parsley, the rock-herb (petra is stone, compare Icel. steinselja). She appeared again in French, in 1697, as Persinette (for persille, again parsley), thanks to Charlotte Rose de Caumont de la Force. Elsewhere the mother's craving is for a plum, and the child is named accordingly. AT 310 is a well-travelled tale, and we may expect the kind of vegetable variation that is desirable in anyone's diet.
I will continue to eat rapini and think of the Maiden in the Tower. Call it a personal oikotype. And as the door downstairs still does not respond to the buzzer upstairs, I will continue my practice of granting visitors entry by letting down my extra set of keys on a red ribbon hung out the window.
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