Valerianella locusta
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Valerianella locusta is a small dicot annual plant of the family Valerianaceae. It is an edible salad green with a characteristic nutty flavor, dark green color, and soft texture.[2] Common names include corn salad[3] (or cornsalad), lamb's lettuce,[3] mâche,[3] fetticus,[3] feldsalat,[3] nut lettuce, [3] field salad and rapunzel. In restaurants that feature French cooking, this salad green may be called doucette or raiponce, as an alternative to mâche, by which it is best known.[4]
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Description [edit]
Corn salad, also known as mâche or lamb's lettuce, grows in a low rosette with spatulate leaves up to 15.2 cm long.[3] It is a hardy plant that grows to zone 5, and in mild climates it is grown as a winter green. In warm conditions it tends to bolt to seed.[5]
Corn salad grows wild in parts of Europe, northern Africa and western Asia.[6] In Europe and Asia it is a common weed in cultivated land and waste spaces. In North America it has escaped cultivation and become naturalized on both the eastern and western seaboards.[7]
As a cultivated crop, it is a specialty of the region around Nantes, France, which is the primary source for mâche in Europe.[8]
History [edit]
Corn salad was originally foraged by European peasants until Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie, royal gardener of King Louis XIV, introduced it to the world.[9] It has been eaten in Britain for centuries and appears in John Gerard's Herbal of 1597.[10] It was grown commercially in London from the late 18th or early 19th century and appeared on markets as a winter vegetable, however, it only became commercially available there in the 1980s.[11] American president Thomas Jefferson cultivated mâche at his home, Monticello, in Virginia in the early 1800's.[8]
The common name corn salad refers to the fact that it often grows as a weed in wheat fields.[10] (The European term for staple grain is "corn".) The Brothers Grimm's tale Rapunzel may have taken its name from this plant.
Nutrition [edit]
Like other formerly foraged greens, corn salad has many nutrients, including three times as much vitamin C as lettuce, beta-carotene, B6, B9, vitamin E, and omega-3 fatty acids. It is best if gathered before flowers appear.[12]
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References [edit]
- ^ "The Plant List".
- ^ Missouri Botanical Garden, Valerianella locusta
- ^ a b c d e f g Floridata: Valerianella locusta
- ^ Larousse Cuisine: Mâche
- ^ Plants for a Future: Valerianella locusta
- ^ United States Department of Agriculture: Germplasm Resources Information Network
- ^ United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service: Plants profile for Valerianella locusta
- ^ a b Epicroots, History of Mâche
- ^ Organic Gardening Magazine, August-September 2007
- ^ a b John Ayto, ed. (2002), An A-Z of Food and Drink, Oxford University Press
- ^ T. W. Sanders (1917), Vegetables and Their Cultivation, London: W. H. & L. Collingridge Limited
- ^ David A. Bender, ed. (2005), Dictionary of Food and Nutrition, Oxford University Press
Sources [edit]
- This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 edition of The Grocer's Encyclopedia.
