Produce of the Week - Perilla
sponsored by Coleman Farms

Today's veg. is a lettuce with many names. We sell it as Perilla, but readily agree with last week's customer that 'it looks like Kentucky Limestone', because it's called that, too, as well as Rousette and several other things.

What's in a name? Well, it's a compact fairly tight roundish lettuce, suggesting that perilla, Spanish for 'knob' - anything from a chin to an earlobe to a doorknocker - referrs to the shape. The flavor is rich, not bitter but not 'sweet', with a slightly astringent definitely mineral finish, which is possibly the source of 'Limestone'.

Perilla's leaves are fairly flat, stacking easily in a sandwich, but hollow and stiff enough for presenting little blobs of stuff - the term 'stuffing' is sometimes used. What kind of stuff? Something like Brie or Cambazola with chopped nuts springs to mind, but the possibilites are endless - tapenades, 'caviar des pauvres', micro-chopped Waldorf salad. The leaves' central rib is crunchy and juicy, while the leaves themselves are crisp but very thin, softening towards the margins. Like Little Gem, Perilla runs small, but a large one can look quite like a Red Butter, something many customers can't believe it's not, until they try Perilla, which has a very distinct texture - crisper throughout - and flavor.

More or less by accident we've discussed a couple of serving ploys. And there's always salad, but this time of year, as the days draw in and the nights grow occasionally cooler, many people think there's going to be a Winter and eschew salad for something warmer of the soupy genre. There's some appeal to this, not least that this change may mark Winter's advent more clearly than the weather itself, but it's no reason to do without lettuce. Many soups - I'm thinking of the brothy variety as well as the medium-thin base with smallish chunks class, can happily accomodate lettuce en chiffonade or roughly shredded, either added well before serving and allowed to cook and flavor the broth, or stirred in just prior to serving, so that the leaves wilt but the rib retains some crispness and the flavors remain separate.

As a halfway bowl there's the warm salad. Quite popular on the Continent, it's warmth is derived from just-cooked vegetables - rooty things like beet, swede (rutabega) or carrot - or broccoli, cauliflower, beans (green, fresh, or dried) - singly or in combination; while the 'salad' comes from the greens added to, and slightly heated by, them. Lots of other things can go in like nuts, olives, artichoke hearts, bits of cheese - something like a blue or really ripe Camembert will melt into a luscious dressing - or Wurst, if you've nothing better. Season with cracked pepper, mustard (seeds or paste) or whatever strikes your fancy.

Limestone/Perilla is available from Coleman Farms at the Friday and Saturday markets.