Lettuce make soup
The sun set on another Tuesday while May and Juno were preparing dinner. They always did everything together, and they had just returned from their small garden plot on the south side of their cottage. They had started small red potatoes with onion and garlic pieces to simmer before they went to the garden, so it was time to finish dinner.
May gathered fresh cilantro, parsley and arugula into a bundle and minced them on one side of the wooden plank while Juno carefully tore the large head of lettuce into small pieces on the other side. A gentle breeze from the west rustled the willow leaves. Sparrows scampered below the rosemary bushes.
When the time seemed right, Juno added the chopped lettuce to the pot of potatoes and alliums and stirred briskly. The lettuce wilted quickly, and the sweet aroma wafted through their patio. After a bit of brisk stirring by Juno, May poured in her herbs and stirred slowly to the rhythm of the breeze.
Over the slow heat, the ingredients blended together into a creamy green potage. Just before the soup was ready, Juno crumbled a few dried basil leaves onto the mixture and May, just for fun, dropped on a few pansy flowers for color. As dusk prevailed, May and Juno broke off pieces of rye bread to eat with their lettuce soup. Sparrows chirped their approval.
The next day, and five thousand miles to the east, Lin and Song started a small fire at dawn. Song sauntered to the nearby river to catch a fish. Lin ventured into the scrubby undergrowth looking for a ginger plant which was easy to find. She borrowed a small piece of a root and said thanks to the plant. She stopped at their garden patch on her way back to their hut to harvest mizuna, a large lettuce, and a handful of choi sum flowers. Back home, she found Song smiling with a nine-inch bream on his line. Song began filleting the bream as Lin set the rice aboil on the fire.
Song had prepared a bowl of soy sauce the previous day, so he soaked the filleted bream in the soy sauce and added a few ground peppercorns with chopped and smashed peanuts to the bowl. Both Song and Lin carefully and respectfully tore the lettuce leaves into tiny pieces, but this kind of lettuce had a tall main stem which they chopped into bits so it would cook down for their lettuce soup.
Lin also chopped up a couple thin sweet red peppers with the ginger root which she briefly heated in a pot in some peanut oil. Once gently cooked, in went the shredded lettuce, mizuna and Song’s marinated bream. Lin and Song took turns stirring the pot until they achieved the thickness they were looking for – luscious, creamy lettuce soup. They poured it over the rice and sprinkled on the choi sum flowers.
Lettuce began its journey to our markets and gardens as a wild plant with bitter leaves. Egyptians saw some value in it and selectively bred it for its seeds from which they made oil for embalming. That’s clever, but they also bred the bitterness out of the leaves for use as a vegetable. Lettuce migrated around the Mediterranean through Greece and Italy into Europe and beyond, and eventually all sorts of varieties emerged because lettuce varieties readily cross with each other.
Celtuce is a variety grown in Asia for its thick tall stalk. Iceberg is a variety which grows into a thick head like a cabbage. It became popular because it shipped well before sophisticated storage capabilities of recent times, but it is the least nutritious variety. I grew it once and found it to be an ideal hangout for earwigs.
The various leaf varieties are easy to grow if your soil is well-maintained, but they do not abide extreme temperatures without pampering, so spring into early summer and then late summer into fall is lettuce season. If you grow too many or if harvested heads begin to wilt, make lettuce soup.