Vegetables - Lettuce : Varieties

  

There are 5 commonly recognized types of lettuce which are ordered here by head formation and leaf structure:

    * Crisphead, also called Iceberg: lettuces form tight, dense heads that resemble cabbage. They are generally the mildest of the lettuces, valued more for their crunchy texture than for flavor. Varieties of iceberg lettuce are the most familiar lettuces in the USA. The name Iceberg comes from the way the lettuce was transported in the US in the 1930s. It was transported on trainwagons all covered in crushed ice - making it look like icebergs.

    * Summer Crisp, also called Batavian: lettuces form moderately dense heads with a crunchy texture; this type is intermediate between iceberg and looseleaf types.

    * Butterhead, also called Boston or Bibb forms loose heads; it has a buttery texture. Butterhead varieties are most popular in Europe.

    * Romaine, also called cos, is a head-forming type with elongated leaves.

    * Looseleaf: leaves are tender, delicate, and mildly flavored.

In addition:

    * Chinese lettuce types generally have long, sword-shaped, non-head-forming leaves, with a bitter and robust flavor unlike Western types, appropriate for use in stir-fried dishes and stews. Chinese lettuce varieties are divided into "stem-use" types (called celtuce in English), and "leaf-use" types such as youmaicai (Chinese: 油麦菜; Hanyu Pinyin: yóumàicài).

There are hundreds of varieties of lettuce within these categories.

Some lettuces (especially iceberg) have been specifically bred to remove the bitterness from their leaves. These lettuces have a high water content with very little nutrient value. The more bitter lettuces and the ones with pigmented leaves contain antioxidants.





source : hydroponicsearch