Guide to Lettuce Leaves

Leaf Lettuce

• Leaf lettuces are among the earliest vegetables to harvest in the spring, as they don't need time to develop into heads. Often ready to pick in as little as 45 days, leaf lettuces grow as either green or red varieties. While most lettuces don't tolerate excessive heat well, red leaf varieties do even more poorly in that department, as the red pigment in their leaves attracts and traps sunlight, causing the plants to wilt. Leaf lettuces grow into large open plants whose leaves droop around the edges as they mature. Their deeply colored leaves are crisp and ruffled and more flavorful than head lettuce leaves.

Romaine Lettuce

• A Caesar salad would not be complete without romaine lettuce. It's long, somewhat rounded green leaves grow to 10 inches and feature a crunchy central rib and a slightly bitter flavor that lends itself well to sharply flavored dressings. Romaine, also sometimes called Cos lettuce, grows in a loose open shape, and its pale inner leaves are more tender but just as flavorful.

Butterhead Lettuce

• Often sold in plastic containers, which help preserve their delicate shapes, butterhead lettuces are sold as Boston or bibb varieties. Bibb lettuce leaves are dark green and small, while the leaves of Boston lettuce are pale green to pale yellow. Their leaves are short and gently rounded, and both types grow in a loose flowerlike configuration. The sweetest tasting of all the lettuces, butterheads have the shortest shelf life and should be used within two days.

Crisphead Lettuce

• Perhaps the best known of the crisphead lettuces is iceberg, the type seen most often in supermarkets and shopping clubs. Iceberg's outer leaves are often a deep bright green and slightly frilly and surround a tight crisp heart composed of paler colored leaves. The leaves at the core of an iceberg lettuce are often almost white and have very little flavor. Iceberg lettuce has a longer shelf life than other types due to its high water content. Generally speaking, the heavier and more tightly packed a head of iceberg lettuce is, the better the value.

Other Lettuces

• Although they are increasing in popularity due to their use on television cooking shows, a few lettuces still have a way to go before becoming household names. These include escarole, whose short dark green leaves have a slightly bitter flavor and grow around a yellow heart, and radicchio, a bitter-flavored Italian head lettuce with burgundy leaves and white ribs. Frisee leaves are yellow-white or green feathery fronds, while chicory produces slender spiked leaves with a peppery flavor. Mesclun is a combination blend of baby lettuce leaves packaged together under such names as spring mix.