Iceberg

Once upon a time, back in the nineteen-sixties and seventies, the most popular kind of  salad lettuce you would be served here in NZ was the Iceberg lettuce. Thousands of them were grown every year, particularly by home gardeners, because they were easy and bulked up well in hot weather. They were usually picked as whole plants, then kept in the 'fridge along with tomatoes, cucumber and salad cream. Then along came the Italian-type lettuces, with colours and shapes, picked as individual leaves, and salad as we knew it changed, but due to some spirit of nostalgia in the supermarket the other day I bought one. And I love it! It's all about the crunch; modern gourmet-type lettuces just don't have it, no matter how fresh they are. And Iceberg is bland, (which is probably why we got bored with it.) There's very little taste, which makes it a great accompaniment for stronger tastes - smoked salmon or grilled lamb, for example. (I did draw the line at dressing it with salad cream, though. I've never really liked salad cream, even when its called mayonnaise, except with potato salad.) Iceberg lettuce, rocking salads since the 'sixties.