Eminent romaine: Top lettuce pick for salads

Don’t get me wrong, I like my fancy mesclun lettuces as much as anyone — I’ve got a full bed of them in my garden. Those fancier lettuces have vivid flavors that I love.
But romaine has something they lack — crunch.
It was the Caesar salad that sparked the rebirth of romaine lettuce and one of the more remarkable turnarounds in modern agricultural history.
Romaine lettuce has been around for centuries. In fact, Egyptian tomb art depicts a lettuce that looks quite like it. The name “romaine” comes because it was supposedly introduced to France when the pope moved from Rome to Avignon in the 14th Century

freep.com