This might be hard to describe. But I am trying to get healthy and eat more salads, and I have been buying lettuce mixes. But there is one type that of lettuce leaf that is only in very few mixes, and very little of it there. And I hate it, I want to know what it is so I can avoid those mixes.
the only way I can describe it is tasting very strongly like fertile(Manurey, composty) dirt smells afters it’s been rained on.
What does it look like?
let us chew on this.
has the leaffage been washed?
I hate the stuff and your description reminds me of it.
I wonder if the OP might be describing rocket/arugula
I don’t know what it looks like. There is never very much, I just get the taste after having put an assorted forkful in my mouth and start chewing, and don’t really want to do forensic analysis on it at that point.
And I have never found any for as long as I have the patience after that to eat one leaf at a time.
Spinach often tastes a bit musty to me. Rocket/Arugula is another possibility though I always think of it as more spicy/peppery than “dirt”-y
Radicchio? It’s red and white, a similar color to a red onion, and it’s bitter and “spicy,” so there’s often very little of it in salad mixes.
The top leaves of romaine can have that wilted mushy vile taste.
Slugs, I reckon (Snails would be crunchy).
Can you at least tell us what brand of mixed greens you buy? If you can’t identify it by sight, I’m not sure what to tell you - if you can give me a brand, I can tell you what’s in them and what it MIGHT be.
Could it be, maybe, dirt?
Lettuce needs to be washed.
Some bagged prepared salads are sold as pre-washed, but it could be just about anything - as the OP only tastes it when shovelling leaves indiscriminately - it could be dirt, bugs, weeds, rotten leaves, or assorted other contaminants. Or some leaf in the mix. I don’t see how we can factually answer such a vaguely-defined question.
You’ve described beet greens, which are a rounded leaf with a red central vein. Lots of people liken the taste of beets and beet greens to dirt or earth. Here’s a photo of a beet leaf in a salad mix:
http://rebeccakatz.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/OneBiteRoastedBeetSalad-700x295.jpg
I had never heard of beet greens in prepackaged salad mixes - who knew? Thanks for the info!
nm
It’s the same species of plant as perpetual spinach.
I would describe beet as ‘earthy’, certainly, but never manure or compost like - to me, that implies a whiff of rank decay.