The allure of lettuce: An explosion of variety

Discovering the world of specialty lettuce can be as adventurous and seductive as the exotic names of its many leafy greens.

Consider these scenarios with actual varieties of unusual lettuce:

Pull apart Red Sails, tear Midnight Ruffles into bits, and mix with Merlot and Mascara.

Shred leaves of Esmeralda, slice a head of Victoria, toss with Outredgeous and accent with Drunken Woman Frizzy Headed. Add equal parts of Tango, Devil’s Tongue and Flashy Trout’s Back.

Today, lettuce lovers can luxuriate in an array of expanding possibilities.

More grocery stores are carrying packages of mixed greens bearing the likes of Tango, Red Oak, Lollo Rosa, and Red Romaine. Even Costco carries “Artisan Lettuce,” a container of three small heads: the mild and crunchy Petite Gem, curly leaf Petite Tango and ruffled Petite Oak.

The Territorial Seed Company in Cottage Grove, Ore., has gradually widened its lettuce offerings over years, and now carries at least 49 varieties in its spring seed catalogue, said Josh Kirschenbaum, the company’s product development director .

A recent stroll through the Tacoma Farmers Market on Broadway found at least a half dozen growers offering specialty lettuces or starts.

Darrell Westover of Maple Valley says the interest in specialty lettuces is in keeping with the growing variety of produce in general, from tomatoes to onions to carrots.

He sells mixes of live miniature lettuce in bowl-shaped planters. In a practice called “cut and come again,” purchasers can pluck a few leaves of Rouge d’Hiver or Red Sails to toss in a salad and leave the rest of the plant to keep growing.

“There’s a big surge in unusual varieties,” Westover said. “I think people are just experimenting. They’ve seen the old head lettuce in stores forever and they’re just looking for something different.”

Valerie Foster of Tacoma’s Zestful Gardens grows an Italian variety called Rosa di Trento and Feuille des Chene, a French heirloom traced to the 17th century.

“I’m a lettuce junkie,” the Tacoma farmer said at the Broadway market. “I love playing with lettuce.”

A few stalls away, Kathy Gratzer of Oak Ridge Farm was offering a half-dozen varieties of specialty lettuce. The Roy grower said she nearly always sells out, even when she brings as many as 50 heads.

“I like real leafy lettuces. I don’t like iceberg. It tastes like water and it’s too veiny,” Jamie Billings of Federal Way said as she prepared to take home bunches of Sunset and Red Oaky from Gratzer’s booth. “These have more flavor to them. I want flavor in my lettuce.”

Nutrition is a key attraction for Billings and others who disdain iceberg lettuce – the standard, globe-shaped heads of light-green and white leaves.

Scientists say red and dark green leafy vegetables are generally more nutritious than light-colored greens such as iceberg.

Red and dark greens are packed with antioxidants, which help prevent cancer and heart disease.

A chart on the Colorado State University Extension website, for instance, dramatically shows the variance in antioxidant content in five common lettuce types.

The highest antioxidant content is found in red leaf lettuces, followed by green leaf and romaine, then butterhead. Iceberg has the lowest content, less than a third of that in red leaf.

Lisa Owen, chef of The Mark restaurant in Olympia considers serving healthy greens an essential part of hospitality.

“It’s getting back to the concept of eating food that’s good for your body,” she said. “I’d never bother to eat a salad with iceberg. You can even smell greens that have more food value. They’re darker green, have more texture and more flavor.

“It might take people a minute to get used to them. Once you get a taste for it, that’s how you want it. It’s hard to compromise for ones that have less food value.”

Robyn Murphy, owner of Villa Caffe and Imbibery in downtown Tacoma, appreciates the look of specialty lettuce, as well as its health properties.

The former florist uses floral design principals when she creates food.

A glance through the Territorial Seed Co. website shows specialty lettuce leaves can be frilly or flat, rose-colored, lime-green, or purple. Oaky Red Splash leaves are shaped like oak tree leaves. Pom pom lettuce really looks like the fluffy puffs used by cheerleaders.

Drunken Woman Frizzy Headed Lettuce is a type of butterhead with rippled mint green leaves tinged in mahogany red.

“Greens are the basis to any floral design,” Murphy said. “When I build a salad it has to be beautiful.”

Diners may find a handful of specialty lettuce as a garnish atop a sandwich or among the mix of colors in her newest salad variations, Sicily Salad and Chicken Summer Salad.

Gardeners can even incorporate fancy lettuce into ornamental beds, said Josh Kirschenbaum, product development director at the Territorial Seed Company in Cottage Grove, Ore.

Like the similarly named wine, for instance, Merlot lettuce is a deep red maroon, with puckered leaves.

“When it’s sunny it has a beautiful appearance,” Kirschenbaum said.

And it’s not bad eating.

“It tastes like a nice looseleaf lettuce. It has a nice crispy mid-rib, the vein in the center of the leaf. The actual leaf is itself nice, not necessarily a crispy one.”

In Kirschenbaum’s opinion, specialty lettuces are defined more by their texture and appearance than their individual flavors.

The taste differences between varieties are subtle, rather than huge.

“We eat with our eyes first,” Kirschenbaum said. “Having those nice, pretty colors is a great thing to harvest from your yard and be able to eat on a regular basis.”