vegetables

Boston lettuce is a loose head lettuce under the butterhead lettuce category. Boston lettuce is also often referred to as butter lettuce or Bibb lettuce which is an ongoing misnomer because Bibb lettuce is a distinct butterhead lettuce cultivar. Boston lettuce has tender, succulent and very delicate leaves. For this reason, it is usually kept or sold with its root intact and immersed in water to keep the leaves alive and fresh. The lettuce is very attractive and used in a wide variety of recipe preparations such as salads, sandwiches and juices.

Frisee lettuce (also frisée) is an endive vegetable variety with curly, loose frizzly looking leaves. It has a creamy yellowish center that is surrounded by green bitter outer leaves. The inner yellowish heart of the vegetable is often used in salads and other recipe preparations. Although referred to as a lettuce, botanically speaking, frisee lettuce does not share in the same genus nor family as Lactuca sativa, the regular lettuce that many are accustomed to. Frisee is sometimes interchangeably referred to as curly endive, curly leaf endive or curly chicory.

Purple lettuce is a dietary leafy vegetable that has light purple to deep purple looking leaves. Purple lettuce is sometimes interchangeably referred to as red lettuce. The purple to red pigmentation in the leaves is due to a naturally occurring water-soluble bio-compound which itself confers some superior health benefits in humans. There are many purple lettuce varieties, a good number of these are hybrid cultivars. Purple loose leaf lettuce is primarily used raw in a variety of culinary recipe applications which include salads, sandwiches, burgers, stir-fries and juices.