Saturday 14th February 2009
Love the look of red lettuce but find the taste too bitter? Not if you opt for Marshalls two new red varieties, which taste sweet and look stunning
Lettuce Dazzle
Has all the crispness and crunch of a Little Gem, with a compact habit and sweet red leaves that look simply superb alongside their green cousins.
The leaves have a sweet taste with a crunchy texture that will add bite to any salad. Looks terrific in an early summer salad alongside tomatoes.
Lettuce Marshall
A stunning cos lettuce with beautiful deep red leaves and a rich, sweet flavour. The Marshall is a surprisingly hardy cool season crop, even withstanding light frosts.
Sow seeds in early spring and again in early autumn for a successional crop. Marshall looks stunning growing in a border among flowering plants.
Know your lettuces
Cos: Or romaine lettuces, have a long, oval head of tightly packed crisp leaves. They are rich in potassium and also contain carotenoids. The perfect base for Caesar salads. So called as it is thought it originated on the Greek Island of Kos.
Little Gem: A smaller, compact variety of cos lettuce. The rich, outer leaves and delicate inner leaves are crisp, with a sweet flavour. Make the most of them by simply halving or quartering the spear-shaped heads lengthways or separate into individual leaves.
Iceberg: A pale, round, tightly packed lettuce which has crisp leaves with a refreshing flavour. British Iceberg lettuce is available from May through to October stays fresh longer than any other type of lettuce, if kept at a constant cool temperature
Round Lettuce: The traditional 'British lettuce' the round lettuce has soft mid-green outer leaves and a slightly crisper, paler heart.
Did you know?
In ancient Egypt, lettuce was sacred to the fertility god Min and considered to be a powerful aphrodisiac. The first representation of salad appeared in paintings on Egyptian tombs in 4500BC.
