John Waters called iceberg lettuce “the polyester of lettuce”.
Huh. I find it a neutral thing flavorwise. The enjoyment of a wedge salad is the crunch and of course that the crunch stands up well to the blue cheese dressing preferably with some bacon, tomato, a bit of onion, without a strong flavor of its own that competes with them.
In other uses it serves more as a condiment, and space filler.
Not everything has to be nutritious!
Huh. I happen to love polyester, too.
I’ll take the mushrooms, seafood, and black olives, thanks. You can have the iceberg and pasta; I don’t want either of them.
I will also take the mushrooms, seafood, and black olives. But I’d prefer to have them separate from my lovely iceberg lettuce. (Which i typically eat with no dressing. Although… I had it a lot as a kid. I don’t often have it these days.)
On a side note, don’t mean to hijack, but I thought I hated pasta for years until I learned how to make it quite by accident one day with a box of hamburger helper at a time when I could afford little else.
I would say between pasta and iceberg salads, that’s my dinner at least five nights a week.
Maybe I just taste things stronger than most (but I am not a supertaster), but iceberg has an obvious flavor to me. So much so that years ago they had some tortilla chip with a mystery flavor that ended up being late night cheeseburger or something, and the most immediate flavor to me of that chip was iceberg lettuce. I don’t really understand people who say it’s flavorless. No, it’s not as strong as a bitter green, but it absolutely has a flavor, and one that I enjoy.
I am a supertaster, and I can agree that iceberg lettuce has a flavor. I also like the flavor, but it is the crunch that I like most. The white stemmy parts can be overwhelming with their flavor, but they also provide the most crunch.
Oh I recognize there is a flavor there. It is not styrofoam or ice chips. It is just a very mild taste. Its value for me is the crunch without a strong flavor. The flavor in a wedge salad is the blue cheese and bacon. I want that spread out some, complimented and contrasted with the relatively neutral crisp crunch.