The Lettuce Wars

All Hail the Conquering Iceberg

Until 1894, people managed to get along eating salads that actually had flavour from the green ingredients.

Then, a new kind of lettuce was developed. Not because it tasted better or had higher nutrition but because it had a long shelf life and made shipping simple. Iceberg lettuce arrived and conquered our salads.

A Biography of Lettuce

Conceived and born as a wild plant, the ancient Egyptians were the first to grow lettuce as a farm crop. According to Smithsonian Magazine, “Around 2,000 B.C., lettuce was not a popular appetizer, it was an aphrodisiac, a phallic symbol that represented the celebrated food of the Egyptian god of fertility, Min.” Of course it was.

There are four main types of lettuce—loose-leaf, butterhead, romaine, and crisphead. Within those types are many varieties, but you wouldn't know that from a visit to the supermarket.

In the grocery store you'll find three, maybe four, lettuce varieties, dominated by iceberg (crisphead) in all its pale, minimally nutritious state. But, it's fresh or, more likely, appears to be fresh, while its neighbouring Boston (butterhead) lettuce looks a bit limp, and the Romaine is browning at the edges.

None of them packs much of a nutritional wallop and iceberg the least of all. A rule-of-thumb is that the darker green the lettuce the more nutritious it is.

From Whence Cometh the Iceberg?

Get ready to meet Washington Atlee Burpee. He was born in New Brunswick in what was to become Canada in 1858.

His family moved to Philadelphia in 1861 and, by the time he was 14, a precocious young Burpee was breeding poultry. By the time he was 18 he had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and was running his own mail-order chicken business.

At 20, he founded W. Atlee Burpee & Company and had added seeds to his product lines. Using selective breeding techniques, Burpee set about producing better and higher yielding vegetable seeds.

The Fordhook Lima bean and Golden Bantam sweet corn emerged from his greenhouses, as did the iceberg lettuce. The company's 1893 catalog described this beauteous creation:

“Suffice it now to say that we have never had a handsomer or more solid Head Lettuce. By reason of its remarkable solidity and crisp, crystalline appearance it well warrants the name—Iceberg. It matters not whether grown in early spring or under the hottest summer sun, it always heads hard and solid, of surpassingly fine quality. So long-standing and solid are the heads that they seldom shoot up to seed until first cut open with a knife. Try it! and you will tell us that in all your experience you have seldom, if ever, had such grand heads of lettuce.”

Proving that 130 years ago marketing hyperbole was alive and well.

The Popularity of Iceberg Lettuce

The big thing about iceberg lettuce is that it can be grown year round, not in Minnesota or Maine of course, but in California and Florida. It's also a sturdy critter and can withstand journeys of thousands of miles without going slimy.

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As food writer Diana Hubbell notes for Gastro Obscura, “In short, it was the perfect green for America’s increasingly industrialized food system.” And, that's the nub of the problem.

Iceberg lettuce was developed for the benefit of food retailers, not for consumers. The result is a flavourless vegetable that is low in nutrients when compared with other salad greens.

Its deficiencies notwithstanding, iceberg lettuce zoomed upwards in popularity because it became available all year and consumers loved having an alternative to turnips and rutabagas in winter.

By the 1940s, crisphead lettuce (iceberg) had captured 95 percent of the market. Other varieties have since come onto store shelves and have nibbled away at iceberg's dominance, but it's still number one among lettuce sellers.

Iceberg Lettuce Facts

Iceberg lettuce is 96 percent water so that's what it tastes of—water. Nobody bites into a chunk of iceberg and says “Wow! There's a taste explosion in my mouth.”

It is not entirely devoid of nutrition, just close. The United States Department of Agriculture tells us that a cup of iceberg delivers:

• 8 calories
• 0.5 grams protein
• 0 grams fat
• 1.7 grams carbohydrates
• 0.7 grams fiber
• 10 milligrams calcium
• 80 milligrams potassium
• 286 IU vitamin A.

At Taste of Home, Melany Love writes that “Romaine tends to have more nutrients than its cousin (iceberg). It contains fiber, folate, iron, potassium, manganese, vitamin A, vitamin C and vitamin K. It also contains calcium, magnesium and several other key vitamins.”

A judgement that is confirmed by livestrong.com: “Romaine lettuce nutrition is generally considered to be better than that of iceberg lettuce when comparing equivalent serving sizes.”

It has texture going for it, if that's what you are after. But, so does kale. Okay, bad example. How about arugula? Yes, arugula is a better example. So, if you are happy eating crunchy water, iceberg lettuce is for you.

Lettuce Popularity

Bonus Factoids

• In July 1972, the Democratic Party held its presidential nominating convention in Miami Beach. Candidate Senator Ted Kennedy began his speech with the words “Greetings, fellow lettuce boycotters.” This was in support of the two-year-long boycott of iceberg lettuce called by labour activist Cesar Chavez to improve working conditions in California's Salinas Valley.
• On September 6, 2022, Liz Truss became the prime minister of the United Kingdom. She was largely unqualified by experience, skill, and temperament to hold the position and quickly introduced a disastrous economic package that included massive, unfunded, tax cuts. This prompted the influential magazine The Economist to predict her tenure as premier had “the shelf-life of a lettuce.” The Daily Star newspaper then set up a live stream of an iceberg lettuce that did, indeed, stay fresh longer than Ms. Truss's time in office.

Sources

• “Lettuce 101: Your Guide to the Most Common Lettuce Varieties.” Dana Meredith, tasteofhome.com, April 3, 2024
• “W. Atlee Burpee.” saveseeds.org, undated.
• “The History of Iceberg Lettuce.” kitchenproject.com, undated.
• “When Lettuce Was a Sacred Sex Symbol.” K. Annabelle Smith, Smithsonian Magazine, July 16, 2013.
• “How Iceberg Won the Lettuce Wars.” Diana Hubbell, Gastro Obscura, August 21, 2023.
• “What’s the Difference Between Iceberg Lettuce and Romaine?” Melany Love, tasteofhome.com, December 6, 2021.
• “Which Is Healthier, Romaine or Iceberg Lettuce?” Siddhi Camila Lama, MS, PhD, CNC, CPT, livestrong.com, undated.

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.

© 2024 Rupert Taylor