Finding my head again or losing it completely

[muckefuck]

While we're on the subject of German food, here's something fresh and light that should get that spleeny taste out of your mouth:

I can't tell if I'm closer than ever to rediscovering one of my favourite dishes from my student days in Germany or if I'm only mired deeper into confusion. One of the regular side-dishes as the Mensa (university cafeteria) I regularly ate at in Freiburg was a salad consisting of entire heads of lettuce. They were small--bite size, in fact--and consisted of smooth-edged, spoon-shaped leaves. I remember this being called Kopfsalat ("head salad") and assumed it came from the fact that the heads were eaten whole rather than being plucked apart.

But an article I was reading on Badener cuisine mentioned Nüssli (Standard German Feldsalat) as a popular local green. A trip to Wikipedia informs me that this is a dialect name for what in the States I've always heard called mâche. But I was startled to see in the pictures of it the closest similarities to this aforementioned "Kopfsalat" I've ever seen. It's been so long, I can't remember the taste well enough to confirm that it had the "nutty" flavour supposedly associated with mâche (the Badisch name actually means "little nut"), but that would explain why I ate it so readily. If I've had mâche in this country, it's only been as leaves in a mix, never as whole heads, which is why I would never have made a connexion earlier.

But, so far, my research hasn't turned up any instances of "Kopfsalat" being used to describe Valerianella locusta, only Lactuca sativa var. capitata which is--of all things--a close relative of iceberg. Now you know that the tasty green I've been pining for all these years couldn't possibly have anything to do with nasty old iceberg, so I'm vexed. Where to turn now? To a friendly greengrocer who will sell me whole heads of mâche for a pretty penny for a tableside taste test, I guess.

Comments

I just increased my salad vocabulary!

[itchwoot.livejournal.com]

I love the crunch, and it's rather succulent in comparison, while eating oak leaf, frisée or especially Lollo Rosso feels more like stuffing an Elizabethan ruff down your throat. Iceberg is also easier to get, store and handle than all the others (bibb gets bad quickly). Don't really care much about nutrients, but I read that iceberg has lots of vitamin A.

Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike the others. I love arugula/rocket in particular.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Depends what you consider "lots". Pound for pound, it's way behing the others. One 15g leaf of iceberg has 75 IU of Vitamin A, or about 2% of your RDI. A single leaf of bibb lettuce has five times that amount (497 IU) and half a leaf of romaine (14g) more than 10 times (813). But the real winner is spinach. 14g have a staggering 1642 IU or a full third of your RDI. The numbers are comparable for other vitamins like C and K, minerals like calcium and iron, and protein.

That's why, if I'm going to invest some energy into munching on greens, I prefer to make it lettuce wherever possible. If I want crunch, I'll add red cabbage or raw onions.

[itchwoot.livejournal.com]

I don't really care much about those recommendations... Have you heard about Udo Pollmer and his books? His major plea is that people should just trust their own body instead of relying on the ever-changing results of scientific studies.