Lettuce: Varieties

These have been classified in various ways, mostly according to shape. The following main categories are recognized:

• Butterhead lettuces have soft, pliable, rounded leaves which overlap to form a head. They may be small, such as Bibb, the improved Summer Bibb, and Tennis Ball (one of the oldest surviving varieties), or large, such as Big Boston and the voluptuous Grosse Blonde Paresseuse (which is of course French and sounds like someone sitting for a portrait by Renoir).

• Crisphead ‘cabbage’ lettuces have crisp leaves which form tightly compacted heads, as in the case of the well-known Iceberg, or may be long leafed without heads.

• Long-leafed lettuces, such as those in the Cos group, also called Romaine, have crisp leaves, but theirs are long and narrow. Cos lettuces are probably not named for the island of Cos but from the Arabic word for lettuce. The name Romaine may have been given because these lettuces reached W. Europe through Rome (the name lattuga romana has stuck in Italy, as has romaine in France). This type of lettuce is near universal in the Middle East because of its tolerance of hot climates.

• Loose-leafed lettuces spread out in rosette form, which makes it easy to cut leaves from them as needed (hence the French term laitues à couper). Oak-leafed and red/brown varieties are found in this group, as are varieties popular in the Far East, where the plants may be used as a cooking vegetable.