iceberg lettuce

I haven't bought an iceberg lettuce since ... um ... ever. This is the lettuce I grew up with. My mum, bless her, put together the most depressingly unimaginative salads you ever saw. This lettuce, discs of sliced tomato, discs of sliced cucumber. That's it. Bottled salad dressings were kept in the refrigerator door. Setting the table in preparation for dinner meal involved grabbing all the bottles of salad dressing at once and carrying them by their necks clanging together like glass bells to the table. Everybody had their personal choice of dressing.

Then I forgot all about those childish ways.

Much later at a dinner party at a friend's house they did that -- collect a bunch of prepared bottled commercial dressings by their necks and brought them clanging to the table. I burst out laughing. "What's so funny?" Caught off guard, embarrassed, I couldn't answer. But it's still funny.

Now Althouse linked a story posted on NYT online by Mark Bittman, The Charms of the Loser Lettuces that included an attractive photo of iceberg. It looked great. Within the comments to the post on Althouse a member commenter, Paul, wrote sagely:

The reason Iceberg lettuce is such a good choice, in spite of being derided for a lack of nutrients in recent years, is that it is rich in intestinal flora and an aid to digestion. One more piece of traditional wisdom, albeit a small one, that the lefty boomers in their juvenile desire to remake and improve society tossed aside.

Bloody wow. That describes me to a tee (whatever a tee is) even though I'm not a lefty boomer, I don't think. Well then, presented with this new information, that's all I need to march right out there and get me one. So I did. It's crunchy and delicious and I can just feel myself all filled with intestinal flora that's helping with the digestion -- of what? -- of the lettuce and dressing, of course!