TABLE OF CONTENTS
Best European Lettuce Types
Mâche nantaise is a small type of lettuce of the olitoria variety with long leaves that are shaped like spoons springing from the root. Lamb's lettuce, as it's called in English, can not be sold directly from the ground, but must be processed to become a finished and washed product ready for consumption.
It is grown in the French regions of Loire-Atlantique, Vendée and Maine-et-Loire, where the maritime climate enables the lettuce's quality, along with the specific spoil and traditional methods of production in beds. Its taste is distinctively tangy, and is used raw in salads and also steamed and served in vegetable dishes.
This variety of lamb's lettuce is cultivated on Reichenau island in Bodensee lake, near the Swiss border. This area is favorable for vegetable harvesting due to the island's oceanic climate with warm summers and lots of humidity. Feldsalat is frost-resistant, and it can be grown in greenhouses during the winter months and outdoors in spring.
It is hand picked here, unlike in other regions where it is usually harvested mechanically. After picking, it is gathered into 1-kilogram bunches. As a final product, the lettuce has small leaves, is free of roots, and is dark green in color. Reichenau island is also known as "vegetable island", as tomatoes and cucumbers of extraordinary quality are grown there.
Grown in the mineral rich soils of the Veneto's provinces of Rovigo and Padua, Insalata di Lusia is a large-leaf lettuce of the Asteraceae Lactuca Sativa family. It is cultivated in two varieties: Capitata or Cappuccia and Crispa or Gentile.
While they are both packed with potassium and calcium, each cultivar has its own distinctive appearance and flavor. A type of butterhead lettuce, Capitata is extremely tender, with a somewhat crunchy core and smooth, loosely-coiled, bright green leaves.
Reichenau island lettuce is a regional specialty produced under controlled conditions in the region of Baden-Württemberg. The use of fertilizers and pesticides in the production of this type of lettuce is reduced to a minimum. The lettuce is cultivated in an organic medium.
It is grown both outdoors and in protected areas such as glasshouses or polytunnels. Lake Constance, which surrounds the area where it is raised, plays the role of a light reflector and heat sink. When being grown in covered spaces, the positive characteristics of this specialty lettuce are maximized through climate control, irrigation, and optimal nutrients, allowing the first harvests to come very early in the spring.
TasteAtlas food rankings are based on the ratings of the TasteAtlas audience, with a series of mechanisms that recognize real users and that ignore bot, nationalist or local patriotic ratings, and give additional value to the ratings of users that the system recognizes as knowledgeable. TasteAtlas Rankings should not be seen as the final global conclusion about food. Their purpose is to promote excellent local foods, instill pride in traditional dishes, and arouse curiosity about dishes you haven’t tried.