Iceberg lettuce should only be used as a garnish, shredded finely and sprinkled over the top of sandwiches. Or given to chooks.
It’s indigestible fluff, and in times past was used to add colour and bulk at relatively low cost. It wasn’t a real food.
I remember when I first ate lettuce, when I was a kid. It was finely sliced, and drizzled over the top of sandwiches in Myers’ cafeteria, in the days when Rundle Street was still carried traffic between King William Street, and Pulteney Street. I wasn’t expected to eat it, because it was a garnish. I ate it anyway, and wasn’t impressed.
I remember mum being surprised when she later discovered it being sold in shops as a ‘proper’ vegetable, mostly likely when Mediterranean food started to influence our meal plans. We didn’t eat lettuce at home in those days.
Lettuce’s low calorie count and pretty colour has enticed the health food industry to extol its filling qualities, but it has little nutritional value. In my case, it is unbearably indigestible.
Give me shredded silver beet, or spinach, anytime. These can be eaten raw, in salads and sandwiches, replacing gormless Iceberg. What’s more, I find them easily digestible. Silver beet and rainbow chard grow year round in my garden; another tick in their favour.
Cos lettuce is of passable value, as long as it is finely chopped. But why bother? It’s too expensive now. Expensive fluff, especially as a garnish.
Same goes for curly parsley, which should not be eaten. It sticks in my throat and is purely something to decorate a plate. If it’s on top of your food, move it to one side, and leave it for kitchen scraps. It’s just a garnish.
If you want to eat parsley, go for tender flat-leafed parsley — another Mediterranean import, but at least it’s edible and doesn’t stick to your insides.
Kale is another overrated veg, although admittedly it has high nutritional value. Like many people, I decided to grow it after the late Peter Cundall extolled its virtues on the ABC’s ‘Gardening Australia’. He used to boil it and drink the water. I found the water was, let me say, an acquired taste. When I ate the kale, it was tough and unpleasant, until I added butter, salt, pepper, cheese. These additions gave it some flavour.
Two seasons later, a new kind of kale seedling became available. It was called ‘edible kale’. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so alone, but I haven’t been sufficiently enthused to plant it again, not even the ‘edible’ version. I’ll stick to my rainbow chard and silver beet.
Some valiant lettuce seedlings recently appeared in a garden bed. I’ll accept these ‘volunteers’, as self-sown vegetables are called, because they are descended from cos lettuces I grew several years ago. I know they will be tasty and digestible, unlike their harsh Iceberg relations.
The recent escalation in the price of lettuces therefore doesn’t bother me. I am weird, and you can have your lettuce at your own risk.
