In article ,
"Mike Lyle" writes:
|
| You can eat the leaves off the ones you've got, but they'll probably
| taste rather bitter -- not a bad thing, when you consider endive and
| radicchio. Oddly, the way to reduce apparent bitterness seems to be
| salt rather than sugar; but one shouldn't overdo it, of course:
| people ruin food with salt. There are recipes for lettuce soup out
| there somewhere, and I imagine these bolted ones, maybe stalks and
| all, would be very good for that -- try an Intenet search. Anyhow,
| pull 'em out and plant something else.

Right, in all respects. Lettuce soup isn't bad when made with
decent stock and loose, relatively dark lettuce leaves (such as
on bolted lettuces). I wouldn't say that it is exciting, even
then.

The stems can probably be used as for stem lettuce - remove the
outer layers, and eat the inside. It has crunch but little
flavour (and is slightly bitter), so is best dipped in some
strong-flavoured, salty sauce.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.