Chinese cabbage Chinese cabbage Chinese cabbage ("Brassica rapa", subspecies "pekinensis" and "chinensis") can refer to two groups of Chinese leaf vegetables often used in Chinese cuisine: the Pekinensis Group (napa cabbage) and the Chinensis Group (bok choy). These vegetables are both variant cultivars or subspecies of the turnip and belong to the same genus as such Western staples as cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. Both have many variations in name, spelling, and scientific classification, especially bok choy cultivars. The Chinese cabbage was principally grown in the Yangtze River Delta region, but the Ming Dynasty naturalist Li Shizhen popularized it by bringing attention to
Fat choy This may be one reason why some commercially available fat choy has been found to be adulterated with strands of a non-cellular starchy material, with other additives and dyes. Real fat choy is dark green in color, while the counterfeit fat choy appears black. The last two syllables of this name in Cantonese sound the same as another Cantonese saying meaning "struck it rich" (though the second syllable, "coi", has a different tone) -- this is found, for example, in the Cantonese saying, ""Gung1 hei2 faat3 coi4"" (恭喜發財, meaning "wishing you prosperity"), which is often proclaimed during Chinese New Year.