Lettuce (lactuca sativa) is our VOM or vegetable of the month.  Our easy Steak Salad uses lettuce and microgreens (basically baby lettuce varieties with arugula) thought it pertinent to explore this member of the asteraceae or daisy family.  Lettuces are generally green and have a rosette type growth of leaves.  Types can be round in shape like iceberg or buttercrunch lettuce or cylindrical in shape like romaine.  Grown year round and world wide lettuce is easily available to add to your menu. Organic Gourmet Blend Lettuce – 400 Seeds, 3g

Nutritionally, the darker green the lettuce is the better it is for you.  All lettuce contains antioxidants and vitamin K, but looseleaf or the red-leaf lettuces will contain five times the amount of vitamins C and A versus iceberg lettuce.  Romaine and butterhead varieties are good sources of folate, so eat up ladies!  All lettuces are low in calories.

There are five basic groups of lettuces;
Butterheads: Loose leaved rosette growth with a buttery texture.  Boston, Bibb and Buttercrunch are all in this group
Crisphead: cabbage like growth, light green in color.  Known for crunch more than flavor. Iceberg falls in this group.
Looseleaf: delicate, mild and tender leaves.  Oak leaf and all red lettuces are in this group
Romaine: long head of study leaves with firm center rib.  Crisp with medium flavor.  Cos is in this cultivar, the most heat tolerant of lettuces
Summer Crisp or Batavia:  a moderatly dense head, think a combination of looseleaf and iceberg.  Usually sold as batavian.

When buying lettuce, look for crispness, avoid limp, soft or bruised heads. When you harvest fresh lettuce, wash the leaves, then roll them up in moistened paper towels, and put them in an unsealed plastic bag in the crisper section of your frigde.  Lettuce should keep for about a week, always wash thoroughly before consuming.

Historically, the earliest picture of lettuce is seen at the Senusret temple at Karnak, an offering to the god Min.  The Egytians considered lettuce an aphrodisiac.  The Greeks believed that lettuce induced sleep.  Romans spread lettuce through Europe.  We have to thank old Chris (Columbus) for lettuce here in the america’s.  Quite the world wide journey, eh?

Interesting Facts:

Once a lettuce has “bolted” in the garden, pull it as the leaves will go bitter.

Lettuce cannot be canned or frozen.

The name for lettuce in both English and Latin is the from the word “lac” referring to the milky juice from the plant.

Lettuce naturally absorbs and concentrateslithium.

Some lettuces (especially iceberg) have been specifically bred to remove the bitterness from their leaves. These lettuces have high water content and so are less “nutritionally dense” than are the more bitter lettuces and those with darker leaves.

There is a tribe of northern Iraq who consider eating lettuce taboo.

Lettuce is a cool weather crop and can be grown year round in cold frames (yes even here in Utah).