Vegetables are generally the edible parts of plants. In previous posts, we explored roots, fruits and berries, legumes, cereals and seeds, and flowers. We also discussed edible fungi and seaweed, which, although often treated as vegetables, technically fall outside this category. In this section, we will therefore focus on the remaining, the stems and the leaves.
Lettuce
Lettuce and salad are both Latin words and both might refer to the plant lactuca sativa. The English word “lettuce” and scientific name “lactuca” are based on the word lac, meaning “milk”, because lettuce produces a milky sap when cut.
The word “salad” originates from the Latin salata, meaning “salted”. In ancient Roman cuisine, vegetables were commonly seasoned with brine or salty dressings, which gave rise to the term. Over time, in many languages, the name of the dish became so closely associated with the main ingredient that it was eventually assimilated into the name of the plant itself.
Other interesting term with Latin roots, we can not find them in English. Turkish word marul and the Greek marouli (μαρούλι). Both trace back to the Latin amarus, meaning “bitter”, referring to the bitter taste of some varieties of lettuce.
In the Iberian Peninsula, two distinct words for lettuce stand out: Catalan enciam and Portuguese alface. The Catalan word enciam has Latin origins, derived from incisem, which in turn comes from the Latin verb incidere, meaning “to cut”.
Portuguese word alface appears quite different because it is the only major term for lettuce in the region that does not come from Latin. Instead, it has a much older origin: the word can be traced back to Mesopotamia, where the Sumerians called it hiz or hishar. This term was later adopted into Arabic, and from there it entered the Iberian Peninsula.
