Guest Column

How green is the lettuce

Chef Kaviraj Khialani

Lactua sativa, or the lettuce, is by far the most popular of the leafy salad vegetables. It belongs to a very large family compositae, which includes cultivated species such as the chicory and the endive, and various wild plants with edible leaves - all more or less tough and bitter like the dandelion and some thistles. The original wild lettuce is still common in Europe and temperate Asia, and is as harsh as any of these. It is also called as prickly or wood lettuce - an unpromising plant for cultivation.

The original reason for cultivating lettuce was for medicinal purposes. Wild lettuce, and to a lesser extent its cultivated descendant, contains a latex with a mildly soporific effect. This resembles and smells like latex of the opium poppy, but the plants are unrelated.

Its history

Lettuce has a long history in the kitchen. Beginning in the near east, ancient Egyptian tombstones about 4,500 BC show a plant which appears to be lettuce because early varieties were tall with a lot of stem, less leaves and no proper head. There are other plants of the lettuce and the chicory family which have much the same form. For this reason chicory has at times been called as wild lettuce in England. The Greeks themselves who called it tridax were certainly using it not long afterwards. During circa 400 BC, its dietary qualities were assessed in the hypocritic text regimen, and since it is mentioned by the other Greek writers on food it is clear that it was widely cultivated and eaten.

The Romans ate a lot of lettuce as well. The Latin name latucca is connected with lac (milk) because of the milky sap or latex which oozes out of the cut stem. In the early Roman period, lettuce was eaten at the end of a dinner to calm down the appetite and to induce sleep. Later it was eaten at the beginning to stimulate the appetite. This change would have coincided with the development of the improved varieties which selected for lack of bitterness would have contained less of the narcotic substances. In the first century AD, Pliny describes nine varieties including a purple and a red one. all these were still loose and headless types. The usual Roman way of serving lettuce was as a salad with dressing. But some write-ups also show that it was made into a puree and at times was also pickled in brine solutions.

By the fifth century the plant started being cultivated in China where it has always been treated as a vegetable which can be cooked. Because of the different kind of approach here, the vegetable has been by far more developed in China, and the Far East has different characteristics.

Following the Dark Ages, lettuce does not appear again in European literature until the late 14th century. It was eaten by peasants while the ancestral prickly lettuce continued to be used medicinally as a soporific. Later in the 16th century, the cultivated plant began to take on the forms known today. The 17th century writers also mention the minor varieties of cut leafed, oak leafed and with multiple heads like Brussels sprouts colours, including light and dark green, red and spotted. Some of these fancy plants have been revived.

Seeds of the European lettuce were taken to America as late as 1494. All Americans cultivated lettuce and the most popular ones include the Canada wild lettuce. The wild plants are as harsh as their European relatives and are not normally eaten much.

By 1,600 BC, the narcotic effect of the lettuce head had been reduced. It seems that only the known cases of the lettuce having actually sent people into a stupor are when in times of shortage they have been reduced to eating large amounts of the stems of lettuce which have bolted or gone to seed.

Varieties of lettuce

These have been classified in various ways mostly according to the shape. The following are the main categories recognised:

• Butterhead - These are soft, pliable rounded leaves with overlap to form a head. They may be small such as the tennis ball or large such as big Boston.
• Crisphead - Cabbage lettuces, have crisp leaves which form tightly compacted heads as in the case of the well known lceberg, or may be long-leaved without heads.
• Long-leafed lettuce - Also called romaine, they have crisp leaves, but theirs are long and narrow. Cos lettuces are normally not named for the island of Cos but from the Arabic word for lettuce. The name romaine may be given because these lettuces reached western Europe through Rome. This type of lettuce is universal in the Middle East because of its tolerance of hot climates.
• Loose-leaved lettuces - Spread out in rosette form which makes it easy to cut leaves from them as needed. Oak leaved lettuces, red and brown varieties, are found in this group as are varieties popular in the Far East where the plants may be used for a cooking vegetable.

A special type of lettuce grown mainly in China is called as celtuse in English. The word is a combination of celery and lettuce, given to it because of its shape. Another flattering name is the asparagus lettuce, the fleshy stem is the part eaten, usually cooked. The lower leaves which are tough are unpalatable are stripped off before the plant is sold, leaving only the tender leaves at the very top.

The Indian lettuce belongs to a very different species and has been developed separately from the other varieties. It is rather coarse and has reddish leaves or leaves with a small mid rib. In Japan, the most common type of lettuce is the tsitsa, which has been developed domestically. It is sometimes referred by its botanical name L-tsitsa, although this has not been officially recognised.

Principal uses of lettuce are however seen in salad making. In the 17th century, as French works of the period testify, the cores of full grown lettuces were candied to make a prized confection called gorge d'ange - also means angel's throat! Cream of lettuce soup is popular, but cooked lettuce is not generally favoured in western countries, although it is a common practice to cook peas with lettuce. In China lettuce leaves are shredded and stir fried. Celtuse stems are peeled and finely sliced crosswise before cooking the tops.

Chef Kaviraj Khialani is the head of the department (Food Production) at Kohinoor College of Hotel & Tourism Management Studies, Mumbai. He can be reached at kaviraj21@hotmail.com