Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
lettuce than iceberg, and is a gorgeous pale green mottled with red flecks. It looks
something like an old-fashioned cabbage rose of a peculiar hue.
Treviso is a type of radicchio with a long, tapered head that is almost always used for
cooking. (All three names - Chioggia, Castelfranco and Treviso - come from towns in the
Veneto.) One traditional form of Treviso, called tardivo, needs to be hand-forced, the way
Belgian endive is: plants are grown in the field, then cut and stored in the dark, where
they continue to grow without developing chlorophyll. This coincidence of techniques is
not accidental. The method for forcing tardivo was perfected by a Belgian endive grower,
Francesco van den Borre, in the 1860s. The leaves of tardivo grow on long, white, spidery
stems. It looks like some kind of exotic lily and is incomparably creamy and sweet when
cooked. Because growing it takes so much work, it is rarely seen in the United States, and
when you do find it, it is usually expensive.
In the 1950s plant breeders came up with another form of Treviso that doesn't require
transplanting. It is called precoce (precocious) because it has the added advantage of
maturing earlier than tardivo. Neither quite as sweet nor as creamy as tardivo, precoce is
still very good when cooked. It is also more commonly available in the United States; look
for something that resembles a big, red Belgian endive.
Lots of the greens we eat in salads today are the immature leaves of young vegetables
- beets, kale, spinach, various mustards and swiss chard. These are generally tender and
vary in taste according to the vegetable from which they come. Aniseflavored shiso and
mustardy tatsoi and mizuna are the leaves of Asian vegetables. Salad mixes frequently
contain herbs, such as chervil, flat-leaf parsley and basil. Some of the greens are what in
less enlightened times would have been called weeds. Is there a gardener alive who has
not cursed dandelions and purslane? Although these plants may be invasive, their pep-
pery, slightly bitter leaves are welcome additions to mixed salads. And although it's hard
to think of violet-scented mache and spicy arugula as weeds, if you've ever planted them
and let them go to seed, you know that they can make a dandelion look passive. At one
point, such greens caused much hilarity among not-yet-fine diners who derided them as
"lawn clippings." Fast growing and easy to harvest, they are turning into a big business.
Since 1995 the acreage of "spring mix" in Monterey County alone has gone from about
500 acres to more than 12,000. You could say the lettuce industry is moving from widgets
to weeds.
