Valerianella locusta

Valerianella locusta is a small annual plant that is eaten as a leaf vegetable. It has a characteristic nutty flavour, dark green colour, and soft texture, and is popularly served as salad greens.[2] Common names include corn salad,[3] common cornsalad,[4] lamb's lettuce,[3] mâche[3] (/mɑːʃ/), fetticus,[3] feldsalat,[3] nut lettuce,[3] field salad. In restaurants that feature French cooking, it may be called doucette or raiponce, as an alternative to mâche, by which it is best known.[5] In German-speaking Switzerland it is known as Nüsslisalat or Nüssler, terms that have been borrowed by the area's many English speakers. It is typically served as a salad with chopped hard-boiled eggs and crumbled bacon.

"Corn salad" redirects here. For a salad prepared from corn, see succotash.

Valerianella locusta
Corn salad is identifiable by its rounded leaf and deep green colour
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Dipsacales
Family: Caprifoliaceae
Genus: Valerianella
Species:
V. locusta
Binomial name
Valerianella locusta
(L.) Betcke
Synonyms[1]
  • Valeriana locusta L.
  • Valeriana locusta var. olitoria L.
  • Valerianella olitoria (L.) Pollich
Valerianella locusta illustration by Thomé (1885) showing the plant, flower, and seed.

Description

Corn salad grows in a low rosette with spatulate leaves up to 15.2 cm long.[3] It is a hardy plant that grows to zone 5, and in mild climates it is grown as a winter green.

In warm conditions it tends to bolt to seed,[6] producing much-branched stems with clusters (cymes) of flowers. The flowers have a bluish-white corolla of five fused petals, 1.5 to 2 mm (0.06 to 0.08 in) long and wide, and three stamens. Underneath the flowers is a whorl of bracts. Fertilized flowers produce achenes with 2 sterile chambers and one fertile chamber.[7][8][9]

Distribution and habitat

Corn salad grows wild in parts of Europe, northern Africa and western Asia.[10] In Europe and Asia it is a common weed in cultivated land and waste spaces. In North America it has escaped cultivation and become naturalized on both the eastern and western seaboards.[11]

As a cultivated crop, it is a specialty of the region around Nantes, France, which is the primary producer of mâche in Europe.[12]

History

Corn salad was originally foraged by European peasants. Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie, royal gardener of King Louis XIV, introduced it to kitchen gardening.[13] It has been eaten in Britain for centuries and appears in John Gerard's Herbal of 1597.[14] It was grown commercially in London from the late 18th or early 19th century and appeared on markets as a winter vegetable, but it only became available in modern supermarkets there in the 1980s.[15] American president Thomas Jefferson cultivated mâche at his home, Monticello, in Virginia in the early 1800s.[12]

The common name corn salad refers to the fact that it often grows as a weed in cornfields,[14] ("corn" is used in the sense of "cereal", not the US meaning of maize).

Nutrition

Like other formerly foraged greens, corn salad has many nutrients, including three times as much vitamin C as lettuce, beta-carotene, B6, iron, and potassium. It is best if gathered before flowers appear.[16]

Valerianella locusta
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
3.6 g
0.4 g
2 g
MineralsQuantity %DV†
Potassium
10%
459 mg
Sodium
0%
4 mg
†Percentages are roughly approximated using US recommendations for adults.
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References
  1. "The Plant List".
  2. "Valerianella locusta". Missouri Botanical Garden.
  3. "Valerianella locusta". Floridata.
  4. "BSBI List 2007". Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. Archived from the original (xls) on 2014-10-23. Retrieved 2014-10-17.
  5. "Mâche". Larousse Cuisine.
  6. Plants for a Future: Valerianella locusta
  7. "Valerianella locusta". E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia.
  8. "Taxon Profile: Valerianella locusta". Flora of New Zealand. Missing or empty |url= (help)
  9. "Taxon Profile: Valerianella". Flora of New Zealand.
  10. "Valerianella locusta". Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN). Agricultural Research Service (ARS), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Retrieved 2017-12-18.
  11. "Valerianella locusta". Natural Resources Conservation Service PLANTS Database. USDA.
  12. "History of Mâche". Epicroots.
  13. Organic Gardening Magazine, August–September 2007
  14. Ayto, John, ed. (2002). An A-Z of Food and Drink. Oxford University Press.
  15. T. W. Sanders (1917), Vegetables and Their Cultivation, London: W. H. & L. Collingridge Limited
  16. Bender, David A., ed. (2005). Dictionary of Food and Nutrition. Oxford University Press.


Sources

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Ward, Artemas (1911). "[no title cited]". The Grocer's Encyclopedia.

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