By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, October 23, 2008 in The Washington Post

They say you should never discard out-of-style clothes, because sooner or later they will be back in vogue.

The same thing happens with food. Take iceberg lettuce, for example. In the 1950s, it was the only salad green you could buy. Round, hard and pale green with furled edges, it was cabbagelike in its density, and it kept almost forever. It went to war with the troops, preserved the structural integrity of lunch-bag BLTs and was always there for you in the back of the fridge, no matter how seldom you went shopping. No wonder they called it bachelor lettuce.

Iceberg lettuce was not gourmet. The fanciest it ever got was when the local steakhouse cut a wedge of it, set it on a plate and topped it with a dollop of creamy blue cheese dressing. Then along came the greener, softer, more healthy lettuces such as Boston and the crunchy but nutritious romaine. Next were Euro-style treats such as arugula, mache, radicchio and mesclun mix. Then exotic Asian ones such as mizuna and tatsoi. Iceberg remained a major commercial crop, but style-wise its sun had set.

Interestingly, iceberg is an heirloom variety that was introduced by W. Atlee Burpee & Co. in the late 19th century, and the general type, known as crisphead, is older still. Now few lettuces sold are the true iceberg, but the name has stuck partly because the heads were once shipped in boxcars piled with ice, and partly, I think, because the name evokes freshness and crunch.

One summer not long ago I was growing a lettuce mix sold by John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds, and one type that came up in the row was much crisper than the others. It added a very nice quality to my salads, so I traced it to a variety Scheepers sold separately, called Summertime, which I then grew all by itself. Everyone loved it. Since then, I have noticed lettuces such as this one cropping up more often. Few dare refer to them as iceberg, so the word crisphead is back in use.

Because there is no getting around the fact that most icebergs have little more nutrients than a volleyball, work is being done to improve them. David Still, a professor at California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, has been crossing them with butter lettuces to green them up and make them richer in beta carotene. Scheepers offers one called Red Glacier with red-tipped leaves and a greener heart.

Meanwhile, some markets are still finding crisphead lettuces a tough sell to trendy customers who celebrate the end of the iceberg age. But one farmer I know approached a young restaurateur with this suggestion: "Take one of these crispheads, cut it in wedges, and spoon over blue cheese dressing. It'll save you lots of time." "Wow," she replied, "what an amazing idea."

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Creative Commons photo credit: Crimson Silk