Tag: wilted lettuce

Earth Day

I ended up with my mother’s cast iron skillet. It’s in the garage right now; it needs to be cleaned up and seasoned. Maybe I’ll do that in honor of Earth day. And then I might make wilted lettuce ’cause it’s so earthy.

I stumbled across a recipe for it in a book about growing up on an Iowa farm during the Depression, called Little Heathens.  Mildred Kalish came from a time and place where every meal was equal measure of labor and love.

Pick, wash and dry a large bowl of leaf lettuce. Fry about 8 slices of bacon in an iron skillet until crisp and brown. Crumble over lettuce.

Pour all but 3 tablespoons of fat from the pan. Add 1/2 cup water, four chopped green onions, 1 TB sugar and 3 TBS apple cider vinegar. Bring mixture to a boil while scraping brown bits from bottom of skillet.

Pour the mixture over the bacon and lettuce which will wilt the lettuce. Stir and serve immediately with some good bread.

Mildred’s family aren’t the only ones with a soft spot for wilted lettuce: I found 174,000 entries when I searched recipes. Though I didn’t read every one of them — it looks like there are only a few variations to the bacon, vinegar, boiling-mixture-over-lettuce-formula.

I did bookmark a blog so I can find my way back to it. It’s called Mixed Greens, lots of really good photographs, and ideas/recipes for taking advantage of local and seasonal food. Happy Earth Day.