Making an Easy Salad With Mixed Baby Greens

Mesclun is a salad mix of assorted small, young salad leaves which originated in Provence, France. The name comes from Provençal mescla, and literally means “mixture.” The traditional Provençal mesclun includes chervil, arugula, leaf lettuces, and endive in equal proportions. Modern American iterations may include an undetermined mix of fresh and available leaf lettuces, spinach, arugula, chard, mustard greens, dandelion, curly endive, escarole, mizuna, mâche (lamb’s lettuce), radicchio, sorrel, chicory, watercress, parsley, […]

Whetting Your Appetite for Watercress

Watercress was enjoyed by the ancient Persians, Greeks, and Romans. When Hippocrates founded the first hospital on the Island of Kos around 400 BC, he grew wild watercress in the natural springs and used it to treat blood disorders. Nicholas Messier first grew watercress in Erfurt, Germany, in the middle of the 16th century. The herbalist John Gerard […]

Greens

Turning Over a New Leaf

Leafy green vegetables, also called greens, vegetable greens, leafy greens, or salad greens, are plant leaves eaten by humans. Leafy greens the healthiest food you can eat. Anyone who might think that leafy greens are boring should know that there are leaves from nearly 1,000 species of plants that humans eat. Leafy greens are low in calories and fat, high in protein, fiber, iron, and calcium, and […]