Gourmet greens - Fancy lettuces showing up in area restaurants

Fancy lettuces are showing up in area restaurants, replacing the iceberg mainstay.

Ever heard of a "honeymoon salad?" It's lettuce alone. While that might be good for newlyweds, it's usually not good for salads, especially if your idea of greens is iceberg lettuce, the kind most of us grew up on.

Iceberg lettuce (called crisphead before farmers started shipping it in mounds of crushed ice which made the heads look like the crown of an iceberg) is the Model T of the salad world.

As Leslie Harlib points out, it is to the American salad scene what the Ford was to automobiles -- the first affordable, mass-produced and mass marketed vehicle.

While, as the "Oxford Companion to Food" notes, lettuce has a long history in the kitchen, cultivated as long as 3,000 years ago by the Babylonians and perfected by the Romans who fed it to their emperors (Augustus Caesar was once put on an all-salad diet).

By the 19th century you either had to be rich to afford to eat it, or else grow it yourself.

Then along came W. Atlee Burpee who democratized the salad bowl by breeding ball-shaped heads of iceberg lettuce. Thanks to him it became possible for everybody to enjoy lettuce, and iceberg became the house salad in eateries coast to coast from the cheapest diner to the fanciest restaurant.

But iceberg lettuce, for all its popularity, is pretty plain, seen as the tasteless part of a salad, designed to be covered up with a thick dressing to impart flavor. Even Deborah Madison, the vegetarian Julia Child who calls lettuce "one of the most lovely, pure and beguiling of foods," says iceberg is mostly about crunch, not taste. She suggests it's the lettuce you want when you're going camping. Thus, unless you're on your honeymoon, lettuce alone isn't very appealing.

Octavia Scharenborg is out to change that. A sixth generation farmer and certified master gardener, her Show Me Fresh Farm 10 miles outside of Cape Girardeau is growing gourmet greens hydroponically, that is, in water alone without soil, for sale at area farmers markets, including the ones at Arena Park and the Plaza Galleria. She produces eight leafy varieties. Some, like Italian lolo rossa, are festive in appearance with frilly edges and deep red colors. Others, like Bibb, are soft and buttery and grow in the form of an elegant rosette. Still others, like Waldman Green, come in large loose leaves perfect for sandwiches and wraps. All are a far cry from iceberg.

Apparently growing plants in long trays through which water circulates and feeding them 24 hours a day with a nutrient solution makes a big difference. There's no fertilizer residue (the plants don't touch the ground because there's no ground to touch), and pesticides and herbicides aren't used. Moreover, the oxygen in the water promotes faster nourishment of the plants which makes them more nutritious and high in vitamins. The result is a "sweeter" lettuce with a longer shelf life.

No wonder the better restaurants in Cape Girardeau as well as some of the top dining establishments in St. Louis have put Scharenborg's lettuces on their menus. Her produce has been served at the governor's mansion, as well as in Washington, D.C., New York and California.

Take a leaf from Scharenborg and you may appreciate why in Jewish cooking lettuce is the symbol of joy. With greens like these, lettuce alone is not only an understandable newlywed's plea, but a perfectly logical culinary request as well.

Listen to A Harte Appetite at 8:49 a.m. Fridays on KRCU, 90.9FM. Write A Harte Appetite, c/o the Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semissourian.com.