springing forward 57which we call “eggs in a nest,” was inspired by the eggs from Lily’s fi rst
flock of hens and fi ve- color chard from the garden.
Children are, of course, presumed to hate greens, so assiduously that
a cartoon character with spinach- driven strength was invented to inspire
them. I suspect it’s about the preparation. Even poor Popeye only gets
miserably soppy- looking stuff out of a can. (Maybe sucking it in through
his pipe gives it extra flavor.) The rule of greens is that they should be
green, cooked with such a light touch that the leaf turns the color of the
light that means “go!” and keeps some personality. Overcooking turns it
nearly black. To any child who harbors a suspicion of black foods, I would
have to say, with the possible exception of licorice, I’m with you.
Leafy greens are nature’s spring tonic, coming on strong in local mar-
kets in April and May, and then waning quickly when weather gets hot.
Chard will actually put up a fi ght against summer temperatures, but let-
tuce gives up as early as late May in the south. As all good things must
come to an end, the leafy- greens season closes when the plant gets a cue
from the thermometer—85 degrees seems to do it for most varieties.
Then they go through what amounts to plant puberty: shooting up, trans-
forming practically overnight from short and squat to tall and graceful,
and of course it is all about sex. The botanical term is bolting. It ends with
a cluster of blossoms forming atop the tall stems; for lettuces, these fl ow-
ers are tiny yellow versions of their cousin, the dandelion. And like any
adolescent, the bolting lettuce plant has volatile chemicals coursing
through its body; in the case of lettuce, the plant is manufacturing a burst
of sesquiterpene lactones, the compounds that make a broken lettuce
stem ooze milky white sap, and which render it suddenly so potently, spit-
it- out bitter. When lettuce season is over, it’s over.
These compounds are a family trait of the lettuce clan, accounting for
the spicy tang of endives, arugula, and radicchio, while the pale icebergs
have had most of these chemicals bred out of them (along with most of
their nutrients). Once it starts to go tall and leggy, though, even an inno-
cent iceberg becomes untouchable. This chemical process is a vestige of
a plant’s life in the wild, an adaptation for protecting itself from getting
munched at that important moment when sexual reproduction is about to
occur.