Description

This popular lettuce grows in a tall head of sturdy dark leaves and is known for fine-bitter herb taste.  Variety of choice for Caesar salads and other dishes demanding more pronounced flavour. Mixes well with other other lettuces and salad greens.

Many dictionaries trace the word cos to the name of the Greek island of Cos, from which the lettuce was presumably introduced.  It apparently reached the West via Rome, as in Italian it is called lattuga romana and in French laitue romaine, both meaning ‘Roman lettuce’, hence the name ‘romaine’, the common term in North America.

Cos is by far the most nutritious lettuce type, packing roughly double quantity of essential minerals and vitamins, compared to other varieties (and up to six times more compared to iceberg).

Per one cup serving (shredded), Romaine has 2.5 milligrams of beta-carotene, 1.1 milligrams of lutein and one-third of a day’s worth of folate. It’s also loaded with more Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Potassium and other vitamins than any other green or red leaf lettuces. Compare that to iceberg, the least nutritious type of lettuce: one cup (shredded) contains 0.2 milligrams of beta-carotene, 0.2 milligrams of lutein and only one-third of the folate found in Romaine.