butterhead not polite

Put together a mix of bitter and sweet (or don't - the classic French green salad is all butterhead lettuce).

"It's a green lettuce that looks sort of like a butterhead, but it's crisp like an iceberg," he said.

Less tightly wrapped leaves are found on the semi-heading or butterhead varieties, sometimes called Boston or bibb.

Bibb lettuce, a variety of butterhead lettuce.

Helping raise her to that level is the rite of late summer that has come to be known fondly as "the carving of the butterhead."

Mâche mixes well with butterhead lettuces like Boston and bibb, but on its own it makes an excessively mild salad.

A Batavian lettuce is shaped like a butterhead, but it is crispy like romaine and holds up well in hot weather.

There is also 'Debby', a butterhead lettuce resistant to most diseases and also to lettuce root aphid.

Lettuce 'Artic King' This large butterhead lettuce is light green, crunchy and exceptionally hardy.

In lettuce, butterhead varieties are mostly moderately to highly resistant to the aphid whereas crisphead varieties are susceptible.

The kitchen crew is not so fond of watching ladybugs crawl out of the lettuce, but they are growing fond of those tender red butterhead leaves.

The butterhead and crisphead types are sometimes known together as "cabbage" lettuce, because their heads are shorter, flatter, and more cabbage-like than romaine lettuces.

The best lettuces for fall planting are cold-hardy varieties like Winter Density, which loosely resembles romaine, and the bronze-tinged butterhead called Brune d'Hiver.

This salad can include arugula, sorrel, upland and field cress, chicory, butterhead and romaine, spinach, young beet leaves, small green and opal basil leaves and nasturtium petals.

Looseleaf and romaine lettuces, by the way, have more vitamin A than the butterhead or bibb types, which are high in iron; the crisphead varieties are mostly water, but the crunch is nice.

Different locations tended to prefer different types of lettuce, with butterhead prevailing in northern Europe and Great Britain, romaine in the Mediterranean and stem lettuce in China and Egypt.

Sweet leaves should include any variety of looseleaf, butterhead and romaine (or their red counterparts, such as red leaf and red romaine), spinach, young beet leaves, young turnip greens, small green and opal basil leaves or tarragon.

Satur Farms in Cutchogue, N.Y., grows lush heads of herbaceous, velvety tender green and red butterhead lettuce, picking them daily and trucking them to several New York markets, including Fresh Direct, where they are $3.29 each, and Gourmet Garage, $3.99.

Tuckers work with with a specialist Dutch breeder, Rijk Zwaan, largely to boost the number of organic seeds they can offer; this year they have a new Dutch lettuce, 'Teodore RZ', a red butterhead type, ideal for growing in a cold greenhouse or polytunnel.