Mudflower: Obscure salad vegetables: Mache and Miner's lettuce

Saturday, 24 October 2020

Obscure salad vegetables: Mache and Miner's lettuce

There are a heap of common salad vegetables, many are bland or bitter. As well as the common vegetables there are a large number of less common ones. Two obscure salad vegetables that I particularly like are Mache corn salad, and Miner's lettuce.

Mache (Valerianella locusta) also goes by the names corn salad, lamb's lettuce, field salad, nut lettuce, and a long list of other common names. This is a cool season crop that grows well over winter and will often self seed once the heat hits and return in your garden when the weather cools.

Mache is a small plant that is dreadfully low yielding and does not like to grow in the heat. What is lacks in yield it makes up for in ease of growing (did I mention that it self seeds and returns each year), being highly nutritious, and a surprisingly delicious taste for a salad green. Mache is never bitter, even when it is flowering. While I have never seen it for sale I am told that mache commands high prices at markets and is an expensive specialty crop that is adored by chefs.

I think mache is too small, but the taste and texture of this plant are excellent so I keep growing it. Mache is far superior to any lettuce I have eaten. There are a few varieties around, and it crosses and sets seed readily, someone should mass cross them and select for larger, faster growing plants.

Mache corn salad - surprisingly delicious for a salad plant

Miner's lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata) is also known as Indian lettuce and according to the internet even sometimes it is called 'spring beauty'. It is not closely related to lettuce, it is used in similar ways to lettuce which is why it shares part of the common name.

I used to read descriptions of this vegetable on the internet that made it sound like the poor cousin to lettuce, so I didn't bother growing it for many years. One day I got some seeds and gave it a try, and I am glad I did. Miner's lettuce is superior to lettuce in many ways.

Much like mache, miner's lettuce is cold hardy, tastes great, and is exponentially more nutritious than lettuce. It is never bitter, even when flowering. It does well in full sun and does ok in part shade, meaning it grows well under taller vegetables.

This is another salad plant that will happily self seed if given the chance. This is great as it means no seed saving, just don't allow undesirable plants to flower and the superior plants will return the following year.

Miner's lettuce looks interesting, and is simple to grow, but its appeal lies in its taste. Much like mache, Miner's lettuce is superior to any lettuce I have eaten. Unlike mache this can grow a little larger and provides a better yield.

I don't think there are any named varieties, but given how readily this self seeds and the apparent genetic diversity I don't think it would be overly difficult to breed a superior variety of Miner's lettuce.