Dan the Produce Man July 2009
Recently I went to one of my favorite delicatessens for a BLT. I have to say that the bacon was incredible, it was wood smoked and thick and cooked crispy the way I like it, the bread was lightly toasted sourdough and the tomatoes were as tasty, the only disappointment was the lettuce. Where was the crunch? Well my favorite deli uses “Spring Mix” on their sandwiches and that includes the BLT. In my view there is a special place for Spring Mix at a fine eating establishment. A nice salad with goat cheese & walnuts perhaps, but on a BLT, no way! It reminds me of the burger joints that put one soft leaf of green leaf lettuce on their “gourmet” burgers. I can't stand it! Here's to you chefs who are probably already offended by this paragraph - I want crunchy crispy Iceberg lettuce on my BLT and on my burgers! Could you imagine a taco with spring mix or leaf lettuce? Give me a break!
Iceberg lettuce used to be the common lettuce used by restaurants and in the home. Somewhere in the mid 70's it was snubbed by people who decided that it was just too common. Don't get me wrong, I love leaf lettuces, I make salads with them all week long, but Iceberg has a legitimate standing in my mix. There's nothing like iceberg wedges and a good bleu cheese dressing, how ‘bout that Crab Louie? As described above a good old fashioned American burger with crispy iceberg, tomatoes, pickles and onions, taco salads, BLT's, a standard iceberg, tomato and cucumber salad with, yes, that's right Thousand Island Dressing. Tuna Salad in an iceberg cup (3-4 curved leaves hold the salad and is called a “cup) Some Chinese recipes even call for it in stir fry, the list goes on.
Iceberg lettuce is grown in California's Salinas Valley early spring – early fall, further south in Huron California for a month in the fall as the growers in Yuma Arizona prepare for the winter – spring crop. Then in the spring it's back to Huron for another month before starting all over again in Salinas . Why all this shuffling around? Simple answer: to give us a year-round crop it follows the warm weather. Salinas is warm in the summer, Huron is warm in the fall, and Yuma is warm through the winter.
According to Tanimura and Antle, the largest growers of iceberg lettuce in California , iceberg, originally called Crisphead lettuce, was discovered growing in a leaf lettuce field all by its lonesome. The surrounding growers liked it so much that they teamed up to improve the variety and began growing hundreds of acres of the new sweet crispy lettuce.
Burpee offered it under the name cabbage lettuce in 1894 in their seed catalog and claimed that their founder W. Altee Burpee originated the variety on his Pennsylvania farm when he as 18 years old. By early 1900's Crisphead Lettuce was very popular, not only for its crispy sweetness, but because it held up longer than other varieties.
Bruce Church a California businessman and lettuce grower began shipping Crisphead by rail car to the east coast and topped it with mounds of shaved ice to keep it cool and fresh. When the shipments of lettuce reached their eastern destination children would excitedly shout “the icebergs are coming!” Thus began the new name of Iceberg Lettuce… Maybe, |
the folks at Burpee still claim the name iceberg refers to the white crisp heart of the head of lettuce. However the name came about, the rail cars are certainly more romantic. It is also a note of interest that Bruce Church left behind a legacy of vegetable growing in California and his son in law is responsible for the Fresh Express packaged salads that appear on supermarket shelves today, a concept that he began work on as far back as 1964.
Selection of iceberg in the stores depends on what you want in a head lettuce. The lettuce should appear fresh and pale green. Avoid wilted wrapper leaves and check the butt end of the head. If there is a lot of browning on the ribs that lead to the cut stem area, then move on to another head. A brown stem is fine as long as the rest of the head is fresh. The milk inside the stem of the lettuce dries and that is what turns it brown. However browning in other areas of the head indicates age. Some heads of iceberg are light and puffy, that's fine if you want a loose leaf head. A heavier firm compact head will yield more lettuce and will have a sweet crunchy heart.
How to get the most crisp out of your iceberg lettuce is an easy task, fill a large bowl up with ice and water. Unwrap and rinse the head of lettuce, lay it on a solid counter with the stem end up, make a fist and drop it down onto the stem. This will loosen the leaves from the stem and the core will easily slide out. Now cut your iceberg head into four wedges and submerge those wedges under the ice water for one hour. Remove them and drain them. Now make your salad or wedges and dressing. This process helps the lettuce get real crispy, cool and refreshing.
So there's not as much nutrition in Iceberg lettuce as its leafy cousins, but so what? The other “stuff” in that salad or burger has enough nutrition in it and it's not like you're eating it every day. Iceberg does have a significant amount of vitamin K, some vitamin C and potassium as well as iron, so be yourself, don't let the iceberg lettuce snobs keep you from eating what you really enjoy. As your produce man I'm here to tell you its okay to purchase and consume Iceberg Lettuce. No penance necessary. |
