| Iceberg Lettuce Boycotted?
"There once was a time--before the arrival of mesclun, frisee, endive, spring mix, packaged salads, radicchio and arugula--when iceberg lettuce dominated the produce aisle. Quartered, shredded, its leaves pulled off and transformed into cups for canned pears, it knew no rival until the 1970s when Caesar Chavez called for a boycott to protest the working conditions of California lettuce pickers. Tastes changed, too. The wedge of iceberg drowning in a thick dressing was replaced with vinaigrette-tossed leaf lettuces (especially romaine) and smaller, more exotic "designer" greens, all more nutritional and more flavorful than the "neutral" iceberg. Iceberg--a head lettuce, as opposed to a leaf lettuce--is also known as "crisphead" lettuce since one of its chief virtues (some say its only virtue) is that it stays fresher longer than leaf lettuces."
---"MARKET WATCH 6/23: Iceberg Lettuce," Jeanne McManus, The Washington Post, June 23, 1999, Pg. F04 |
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Short of heating up a TV dinner, there are few more blatantly retro gestures than ordering a wedge of iceberg lettuce covered in a thick, creamy salad dressing. The lettuce itself remains popular in the United States. It still accounts for 70 percent of the lettuce raised in California, but that share is declining (in the mid-1970's it was as high as 80 percent), and anyone dining at fancier restaurants around the United States might wonder if it hadn't disappeared entirely, displaced by frisee, dandelion greens, oak leaf, lollo rosso, exotic cresses, microgreens, sprouts -- anything, in short, that's green, has a leaf, and is not iceberg. But iceberg somehow manages to hang on. Steakhouses refuse to give it up. And in some very unlikely places, it has earned a strange kind of cachet..."It's one of those things that's synonymous with growing up in America," Mr. Otsuka said. "Everybody has a comfort level with it. Served cold, it's very nice on the palate, with a good crunch." Marc Meyer, at Five Points, anoints a wedge of the stuff with a modernized, Europeanized blue cheese dressing made with picon cheese from Spain, toasted almond slices and radishes...Despite its shortcomings, iceberg has always had its fans.
James Beard was one. "Many people damn it," he once wrote, "but when broken up, not cut, it adds good flavor and a wonderfully crisp texture to a salad with other greens." It also keeps longer than other lettuces, he pointed out. Flavor? Surely the iceberg stands supreme as the blandest of all greens.
Little pieces? Most Americans side with the prim instructions given in the first "Joy of Cooking." "Heads of iceberg lettuce are not separated," the directions read. "They are cut into wedge-shaped pieces, or into crosswise slices." The lettuce is a relative newcomer, and confusingly named. A lettuce that went by the name of iceberg was developed in the 1890's, and somehow the name resurfaced when new varieties of durable, easily shippable crisphead lettuce began emerging in California in the mid-1920's. In 1948, the iceberg we know today was born. Why iceberg? No one seems to know, although one popular theory holds that the name refers to the tons of ice that chilled it in the days before refrigerated rail cars.
The big, cold wedge is a cornerstone of American cuisine. It survives, and so do the sludgelike dressings that drape it like heavy velvet curtains -- the great, goopy family that includes blue cheese, green goddess, ranch and Thousand Island. I went for the wedge the other day at Del Frisco Double Eagle Steak House. It arrived under a lavalike green ooze, a creamily high-caloric green goddess dressing lumpy with tender bits of avocado....Michael Jordan's The Steak House...the wedge wore a blue cheese dressing...John Schenk, the chef at Clementine, tuned in to this particular frequency years before tony restaurants began playing with iceberg..."
"CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK; An Offering to the Green Goddess," William Grimes,The New York Times, June 14, 2000, (p. F1)
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The future of Iceberg lettuce
As we make choices meal by meal in countries around the world information is always coming at us via radio, TV , internet and printed material, and of course the best, which is word of mouth that you need to eat lo calorie, lo fat and high nutrition food.
We have always had advertising but the best minds are hired to get into your brain. Some have said that iceburg lettuce is akin to eating empty calories or cellulose.
However there is nutrition in this lettuce despite what some say. The chart is below comparing it to Romaine or Cos lettuce.
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The good : This food is low in Sodium, and very low in Saturated Fat and Cholesterol. It is also a good source of Thiamin, Vitamin B6, Iron and Potassium, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Folate and Manganese.
The bad : A large portion of the calories in this food come from sugars.
Also Iceberg can accentuate inflamation.
This is according to nutritiondata.com
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Iceberg |
Romaine |
calories |
10 |
8 |
fiber |
0.9 g |
1 g |
protein |
0.65 g |
0.53 g |
sugars |
1.42 g |
0.56 g |
potassium |
102 mg |
116 mg |
iron |
0.30 mg |
0.46 mg |
calcium |
13 mg |
16 mg |
vitamin C |
2 mg |
11.3 mg |
folate (total) |
21 mcg |
64 mcg |
carotene (beta) |
215 mcg |
2456 mcg |
vitamin A (IU) |
361 IU |
4094 IU |
vitamin K |
17.4 mcg |
48.2 mcg |
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