Thanks, carnut. As a proud Polish American, I most certainly know the difference, in fact I have a lovely fresh head of cabbage in the fridge waiting to fry up with tomorrow’s pork chops. I think my issue may be my grocer, I found 4 lovely heads of iceberg at the local Hispanic grocery. Lovely green salad, no hard bitter white leaves. Cheaper too!
Well, water and Hepatitis A.
I do enjoy the romaine. It was my go-to for many months until I realized that, at least in my case, it does not stay fresh as long as iceberg. I eat salad literally every day for lunch; heads of iceberg keep for a week-plus, romaine does not.
OK, I believe you. You certainly sounded like you were describing cabbage, though. My bad for thinking that you didn’t know kapusta from a hole in the ground. 
mmm
A few years back someone wrote a letter into the Washington Post to excoriate Tom Sistema (the food critic) for daring, daring! to recommend an iceberg salad at a local restaurant. It was a fine establishment, and the salad was best I could tell from the review a fine accompaniment to a fine meal.
But not to the commenter, who basically said that recommending iceberg lettuce was like recommending Boone’s Farm. It was like, how dare you trick people into eating iceberg lettuce when anyone with any sophistication would pooh pooh such a gauche choice.
As someone who likes various types of salad, and, yes, who on occasion goes slumming with the low-class iceberg, I thought the commenter was way out of line.
I realize my anecdote does not directly address the OP, but I do hope you find good iceberg lettuce the next time you go shopping!
We always have to buy iceberg lettuce every week. It’s our dog’s favorite snack.
Our weird – deeply weird – dog adores plain unadorned iceberg lettuce. He literally prances for it.
We just have to keep a limit on how much we give him so he doesn’t gas us out of the house.
While we are on the topic, can someone explain freaking wedge salad to me? I was out somewhere and folk were RAVING about the wedge salad. Not knowing any better, I ordered it - and was served a plate w/ a freaking wedge of iceberg on it! WTF?!
That was what I was thinking too. That sure sounds like you got a head of cabbage instead of lettuce.
Mmm…wedge salad. It’s a delightful vehicle for blue cheese and bacon. Haven’t had it in many years, but now I’m craving one, and I have all the ingredients at my disposal! (I think … I may be out of bacon.)
Iceberg lettuce is also my dog’s favorite treat! She goes nuts for it. I think she really likes the crunchiness.
Then there’s the chopped salad. My gf has ordered that.
Wedge salad isn’t about the lettuce. The lettuce is just a neutral-flavored delivery mechanism for bleu cheese dressing, bacon, and hardboiled eggs.
Here’s one I made (with homemade Roquefort dressing) as the first course for Xmas dinner this past year.
Hardboiled eggs? Interesting. Never had one with that, but sounds like a nice addition.
This was my first time ever making (or eating, for that matter) a wedge salad. I decided to make it because mom wanted a prime rib dinner and I figured I’d go for some classic steakhouse sides to accompany it. None of the recipes I looked at online had egg in them, but egg is a common addition to chopped house salads, and I figured a wedge salad is just a composed form of one of those, so why not add it in?
Mom and I both loved it.
You can’t make a lettuce wrap with butter crunch.
Well - that explains it. If there are 2 foodstuffs I would starve rather than eat, bleu cheese and hardboiled eggs would likely top the list.
Remember, the eggs are a non-canonical addition. And you can probably sub out ranch for the blue cheese (you heathen!) Looking online, wedge with ranch is a thing.
Yeah - and IIRC, that is what I did. And ended up w/ a freaking hunk of iceberg lettuce w/ exceptional toppings that I had to try to cut up with a knife. I’ll suggest Hinsdale’s culinary Rule #1 - sales ought not require carving. 
As someone who prefers to eat salads with chopsticks, I agree.
Hear hear! Chopsticks really are so much better an implement for a lot of things, aren’t they?
I’ve taught our bird Rocco to accept food offered by chopsticks (initially he assumed the chopsticks were a chew toy). I use chopsticks for most meals. In comparison forks seem barbaric.