Welcome to the Wild Foods Guide Page for: Lamb\'s Lettuce (Valerianella locusta)

Wild Food Guide For: Lamb\'s Lettuce



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Mushrooms and Fungi

Lamb's Lettuce


This is the description page for Lamb's Lettuce (Valerianella locusta) and includes a description as well as an image, if available and a selection of recipes from this site that relates to the wild foodstuff: Lamb's Lettuce.

Lamb's lettuce (Valerianella locusta)

Lamb's Lettuce, Valerianella locusta (also known as Corn Salad, Cornsalad, Common Cornsalad, Lewiston Cornsalad, Fetticus, Mâche, Doucette, Rampon, Rampien, and Field Salad) is small, annual, dicotyledonous plant and a member of the Valerianaceae (valerian) family of flowering plants. Typically it grows as a low rosette with with spatulate leaves up to 15.2 cm long. These leaves sometimes bear teeth near the base. The flowers are very small, five-petalled, blue in colour and symmetrical (typically less than 2mm across) and are borne in dense terminal clusters that can bolt up to 70cm tall. Generally they appear in April and May. There are often additional, solitary, flowers on the axils of the branches. Typically common cornsalad (the commonest wild form) grows on walls, by tracks in sand dunes on horticultural land (but not often arable land). They are native to Europe, northern Africa and western Asia but have been naturalized in North America. It is a hardy plant and in mild climates can be grown as a winter green, in warmer conditiona, however, it has a tendence to bolt.

In the past it was foraged by European peasants, however, de la Quintinie, the royal gardener of Louis XIV of france introduced it into cultivation and today many cultivars exist as salad greens. Wild common corn salad leaves have a succulent texture but a very mild flavour. They are, nonetheless, and useful addition to any salad and are best picked before the flowers appear. This mild salad green is bst served with a sharp dressing.


Recipes Utilizing Lamb's Lettuce

Chickweed Rice with Salad
Lamb's Lettuce, Orange and Roast Beetroot Salad
Roast Pumpkin on Lamb's Lettuce
Salad of Wild Leaves
Lamb's Lettuce with Tomato and Sharon Fruit Salad
Roast Rump of Lamb with Lamb's Lettuce
Green Salad with Squid
Beetroot and Lamb's Lettuce Salad
Mâche Sabayon with Parmesan Shavings
Creamy Lamb's Lettuce Soup
Mango and Halloumi Salad with Lamb's Lettuce
Cream of Mâche with Langoustine
Lamb's Lettuce Pesto
Mêche with Parmesan and Gingered Scallops
Chicken, Asparagus and Feta Cheese Salad
Lamb's Lettuce and Crispy Bacon Salad
Pork Tenderloin and Chorizo Kebabs with Lamb's Lettuce Salad




Welcome to the Celtnet guide to wild foods. As this recipe site has grown it has become obvious that to allow people to replicate some of the more ancient recipes on this site (especially from the Ancient, Roman and Medieval periods) it is necessary to list modern alternatives but also to produce a guide so that the curious can find the original (often wild) ingredients for themselves. These pages are an attempt at bringing all these potentially useful and often forgotten wild foods together into one place.

It is a sad fact that we have lost much of the knowledge we once had of the seasonal wild foods that we have on our own doorstep and which are not only safe to eat but which are also very tasty and fresh. This section of the site grew from the work I've done on the ancient recipes section of this site. After all, for our ancestors before farming wild foods were the only foods available. This guide therefor represents images lists and recipes for various wild foods you can gather and what you can do with them. For the most part the list contains edible plants. But I am beginning to add a new section on edible wild mushrooms and this part of the site will be expanding to include many other plants and species very soon. If you would like to know how to cook with these wild foods, then as well as having links to individual recipes on these pages you can also visit my Wild Food Recipes pages for many more (over 1000 and growing) recipe ideas.



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