The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1919-03-08
NEW SALAD SEEKING FAVOR.
Petsai Has Many Qualities to Commend
1t Over Head Lettuce.

Say Salad and the American.
brought up to eat in hotels and restau-
rants or to get his green prosender from
the city vegetable market. will in
stantly think lettuce, and have a
vision of the heart Of a lettuce head.
Strange, too. for the Americans are a
practical people, and head lettuce is not
the best salad, and, il is the most ex-
pensiye to produce and gives the least
salad for the ground space it occupies
and the soil fertility il consumes.
In the outdoor growing season lettuce
| is the one vegetable universally pro-
duced by both home and truck garden
ers, and at all seasons of the year il is
being grown somewhere in the country.
In winter in the vicinity of large cities
| thousands OF acres of glass frames and
hot houses are used 80 produce lettuce,
and enough coal to keep city's homes
warm is consumed to keep up the grow
ing temperature. Last years output Of
! winter lettuce. grown under glass, was
about 0,o00 tons, valued at $9,64S,oo0 in
the gardens, As oat-of season delicaeies
because of the large risk of heavy loss
are always handled on the basis of big
profit by both commission men and re
tailers, it would not be unreasonable tc
estimate that this lettuce cost the con,
| sumers more than s20,000,000. These
figures do not-take intd account the
thousands of crates of lettuce grown out
, Of doors in the South in winter anc
shipped to Northern markets.
! Efforts to popularize Romano OF COZ
/ lettuce and the loose heading varieties
r that have large, plum-hke leaves, sncl
as Grand Rapids and the block seeded
Simpson, have not been successful
!. Italians, Frenchmen, aud Greeks, wh'
| are large consumers of salad, choose TIL
! Romaine because it has more favor an,
! gives more food for the same money
q Nearly every gardener providing sala'
for his own table plants the loose lea
sorts because of the better flavor an,
. greater productivity. Hotel and restau
!. rant men agree that the loose leaf sort
!. with their bright green erlnkled edge
not only make a more fiayorful salad
but far handsomer dish than any 0
1.-The rather colorless head lettuce heart.
j But efforts to introduce these noveltie
! 10 their tables have not been successful
!, simply because head lettuce hearts ar
!, fashionabl in America, and their pa
: irons demand them Celery and parsle
have been tried for garnishing, but the
= did not go, and have long since bee
: relegated I'd the cheap table d'hotes an
u quick service restaurants.
Now the department of agricultuT
has come forward with substitute fo
I head lettuce, which its plant propaga
p ton bureau is sure possesses many as
vantages and none of the drawbacks
{, the salad vegetables that have been o
fered heretofore. This new substitu'
lis petsa, and it comes from China, hal
ing been introduced into America by II
department several years ago, thoue
of it had been grown by Chinese Il
Chinese consumers ON the Pacific Goa
for a much longer time. In recent yea
1t it has had place in some home garden
is and now is grown on commercial sea
" in many localities. Since it has beeon
m more easily obtainabIe Chinese resta
e rants have largely substituted it 4
or celery in the chop suey served ]
al Americans, though the Chinese usual
eat their petsai as separate yegetab
ty either cooked and dressed. withNfat
e sauce, or as salad. Unfortunatel
al some one hung the name Chinese ca
ts bAge" TO petsai when it was first G
is. fered in this country and the popul
he fancy saw it merely as another stra
ii OF the ordinary field cabbage and n
N. MS . salad vegetable of much exeenen,
or but 1t is living down ito plebeian nan
lid and there Is good reason to believe til
uil it may soon at least partially suppla
NM the aristoeratic lettuce heart.
! Among the advantages of pstsai 10y