Lettuce play

Beatrix Potter’s fans will probably know that the Flopsy Bunnies almost ended up in Mrs MacGregor’s rabbit pie when they fell asleep after eating a surfeit of lettuce.

Yes, lettuce. Lettuce is soporific. The slashed stem of lettuce secretes a viscous creamy sap that resembles milk, hence its name which is derived from the Latin lactuca, lac meaning milk to the Romans.

Its waxy secretions resembles, and smells rather like, the latex of the opium poppy which is mildly soporific. During the early years of the Roman Empire, lettuce was served at the end of a meal to help those dining to sleep well. This habit only lasted until lustful debauchery began to take place after the meal and nobody wanted to sleep.

John Evelyn, the 18th-century gardener and diarist, offered advice: “By reason of its soporiferous quality, lettuce ever was and still continues the principle of the universal Tribe of Sallets, which is to Cool and Refresh, besides the effect it has upon the Morals, Temperance and Chastity.”

Modern lettuce however contains rather less narcotic sap than their ancestors, but it’s thought a bowl of lettuce can still help you relax at the end of the day, though it does require a tasty dressing to make it appetising.

There are four main types of lettuce today: the long-leafed cos which is delightfully crunchy and has a delicious flavour, the coarse loose-leaved versions such as lollo rosso, the floppy round variety that were so popular in the 1960s when it was served with slices of beetroot and smothered with salad cream. Then there’s the crunchy cabbage lettuces such as the crisp-head iceberg which are particularly popular, especially when the leaves are gently peeled away and used as edible little dishes in which to serve other chopped salad ingredients.

Whilst iceberg is popular, it’s worth remembering that its light colour suggests that other darker lettuces such as romaine contain at least five times more nutrients. Lettuces are made up of 95.9 per cent water by the way, the remaining 4.1 per cent includes fibre, sugar, carbohydrate, protein, nitrogen and 0.4 per cent fat.

One of the most practical ways of purchasing them if you want a mixed salad and don’t want to have your fridge crammed full of different lettuce heads is the mix of leaves sold in sealed plastic bags. But, although the plastic bag may belong to our modern world the ancient Romans wrote of nine varieties of lettuce which the Roman food writer Apicius recommended were served as a purée with onions.

Throughout the ages lettuce has been considered a salad vegetable, but there are recipes for cooking it (see Recipe below). Television chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall makes a delicious lettuce risotto and Jennifer Paterson’s steamed salmon wrapped in lettuce leaves is tasty too. Cooked lettuce is usually best when combined with other vegetables such as peas, spring onions or courgettes.

The most famous cooked lettuce dish must be the French dish petits pois à la française which calls for spring onions, lettuce and peas braised together slowly in stock having first coated all the ingredients with melted butter. After cooking for about 15 minutes, when most of the stock should have evaporated, this dish lives up to its name.

Then there are warm salads, which call for lettuce and other ingredients to remain uncooked, but mixed with strips of hot grilled, roasted or fried meat, or fish. When the cooked ingredient is tossed into a cool prepared salad along with a dressing and served immediately, it makes for a delicious combination and a great lunch dish that takes little or no time. Hot grilled bacon served with portions of iceberg lettuce topped with a blue cheese dressing make a perfectly balanced meal (see above). In fact, warm salads can become a terrific meal if you need to whip something up when guests call unexpectedly.

I suppose an article on lettuce would not be complete if it didn’t include a warning about food poisoning and the highly toxic ecoli (0157) bacteria that can contaminate fruit and vegetables that have not been washed properly. While most of us are aware bacteria can contaminate protein foods, salad leaves are seldom considered a threat when putting a meal together, yet on those attractive clean-looking leaves all sorts of contaminants can and do lurk.

Ecoli can affect bagged salads even if they have been washed before packing, it can also affect whole lettuce heads cored in the field, often with a knife soiled with dirt laden with pathogen. To minimise risk it’s advisable to wash your hands before and after handling salad foodstuffs, also wash your salad leaves well and use separate chopping boards for chopping lettuce.

Once properly cleansed lettuce is a super vegetable – summer would not be the same without it. Enjoy!