Lettuce (Lactuta sativa) is amongst the most popular of vegetables, used widely around the world. A vegetable that we often take for granted, here is a few snippets of the history of Lettuce that prove there is more than meets the eye with the humble lettuce.
All lettuce varieties originate from one wild species Lactuca serriola which is a wild winter annual found across Asia, North Africa and Northern Europe. Lettuce are thought to have been first cultivated by the ancient Egyptians around 4500BC with wall paintings representing an early form of Cos lettuce found in Egyptian tombs around 4500BC. The Egyptians were the first to cultivate wild lettuce and breed it from a bitter ‘weed’ to a useful food plant, including oil from the seeds. Lettuce was a sacred plant of the reproduction god Min, and regularly used in religious ceremonies.
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The Romans and Greeks also grew and cultivated Lettuce in its earliest forms and it is believed the Romans introduced cultivated Lettuce varieties to Britain and other lands across Europe where continued improvements were made to early lettuce varieties. It is also mentioned in various writings throughout medieval times for its medicinal or herbal value. Throughout history, lettuce milk, the white sap on cut stems, has been believed to have ‘soporific’, sleep inducing or mildly euphoric effects and many cultures have used it this way, including the ancient Greeks who served soup at the end of meals to help one prepare for ‘dreamland’.
Christopher Columbus is believed to have taken lettuce seeds with him on his voyage to New World and the Americas 1492 further spreading it across the Globe and in 1597 Gerard’s Herbal, the most widely distributed botanical reference of 17th century, mentions eight varieties of cultivated lettuce that had spread across the Mediterranean and throughout Europe, in the first modern written record of lettuce.
Quick Snippets
- Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus built a statue praising lettuce as he believed eating it had cured him of an illness.
- It was traditional for Romans to begin their banquets with lettuce to enhance the appetite and relax the alimentary canal.
- Iceberg derived its name from the time Californian growers in the 1920s started covering it with crushed ice before shipping it.
- The Cos variety derives its name from the Greek island of Kos (Cos) in the Aegean Sea where it was brought from North Africa.
- Apart from being a popular salad ingredient, lettuce is also used to make soap, toilet water and skin lotions.
Source: http://www.lovelettuce.co.uk
