Baby cabbage unexpectedly tasted like wasabi

I was drinking my second cup of coffee and my throat got a bit dry, which happens sometimes. I wanted to have something to take away that feeling.

Snacks? Nope, it would only make my throat dryer. Believe or not, I had that baby cabbage on my desk and I was staring at it for a few seconds.

'Why not?' I thought.

I peeled the first leaf and ate it, the first taste came to me was a surprising spicy flavor. Only a couple of seconds later, my brain registered it as wasabi or horseradish, that kind of peppery flavor. Needless to say, I was taken by surprise, I didn't not expect that but a cabbage taste. More particularly, cooked cabbage flavor.

But it was nothing tasting like that at all. Beside the wasabi taste, which seemed only with the green leaves, the inner white ones didn't have that, and slightly bitter, still there was a spicy component in them.

I looked up the wasabi and horseradish online, and learned that they are also in Brassicaceae family with cabbage, also including mustard, that probably explains why this baby cabbage tasted like wasabi.

I began to wonder why we bother to cook a vegetable that is okay to eat raw. Maybe not the whole meal, but it's nice to have that green ball of baby cabbage as a quick snack.