While picking ingredients for dinner during work yesterday, a stop at one of the farmers tables gave me an idea for an informative series here on Rooftop Kitchen. This is for all the farmer’s market shoppers out there that are intimidated by the variety of greens this world produces - and are too shy to ask. A guide for Identifying Salad Greens is the topic of the week, starting today with lettuce.

Lettuces, eaten far and wide, are members of the genus Lactuca. The most common types are butterhead, crisp head, leaf and romaine.

Photo: Lettuce Cultivars by David Shankbone, New York City

Butterhead Lettuces

Butterhead lettuces have small, round, loosely formed heads with soft, butter-textured leaves ranging from a multitude and degree of red and rosey colors along with greens and yellow tinges. The flavor is sweet and succulent. Because the leaves are quite tender, they require gentle washing and handling. Boston and bibb are two of the most popular butterhead lettuces, their soft, pliable, pale green leaves have a buttery texture and flavor. Boston is larger and paler than bibb. Both Boston and bibb lettuce leaves from cups when separated from the heads which make convenient bases for holding other foods on cold plates.

Boston Lettuce:

Photo: Clara Wu

Iceberg

Iceberg lettuce, or crisp head, forms tight, dense heads that resemble cabbage. They are generally the mildest of the lettuces, valued more for their crunchy texture than for flavor. In the United States iceberg lettuce is most common, outselling all other varieties combined. Iceberg llettuce remains crisp for a relatively long time after being cut or prepared. When purchasing, select heads that are from but not harde while the leaves are free of burnt and rusty tips.

Photo: Branflakez

William Shropshire has a nice flikr set of an Iceberg head

Leaf

Leaf lettuce grows in bunches. It has separate, ruffle-edged leaves branching from a stalk rather than a head. Both red and green leaf lettuce should have nicely shaped leaves free of bruises, breaks or brown spots.

Red and Green Leaf Lettuces

Photo: Tony

Photo: Happy_sleepy

Romaine

Romaine lettuce, also known as cos, is a loosely packed head lettuce with elongated leaves and thick midribs. Its outer leaves are dark green and although they look coarse, they are crisp, tender and tasty without being bitter. The core leaves are paler and more tender but still crisp. Romain has enough flavor to stanbd out even with strong dressings. A good quality head has dark green outer leavse that are free of blemishes or yellowing

Photo: trishiak

Photo: E Woud

 Additional Sources:

Labensky, Sarah R. and alan M. Hause. On Cooking. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007.