odl79,
I have a bed planted with each of those that i cut a few leaves from this evening to top off a salad. The BSS was what opened our eyes to how good home grown stuff can be last spring. (Tip of the day: It is slow to bolt and even when it starts getting hot and it goes bitter a bit you can sweeten it up. Water heavily the evening before then cut it early the next morning and leave in the crisper drawer for 48 hours. It will be delicious again.)
I've liked most everything I have planted except for one of the burpee Romaine varieties that just didn't hit the spot.
The Seed Savers Exchange "SSE Lettuce Mixture"
http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=1024 has been a terrific introduction to heirloom varieties I wouldn't have ever tasted otherwise.
The mixture has the following varieties; I'll do my best to describe but you really have to taste them yourself to believe how damn good they are:
Amish Deer Tongue,
http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=626Good in warm spring weather but even better grown in my sunroom window last winter. It was thinner and leggier but tasted like a baby leaf; it did much better in the limited light than those varieties that have a thin leaf under normal conditions. Someone here has grown a variety of deer tongue that has some red in it; maybe they will pipe in a revue. (I don't recall who).
Australian Yellowleaf,
http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=377(OG)This is a lot like the simpson varieties but a huge leaf and an unusually bright green color
Bronze Arrowhead,
http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=378same as with the deer tongue- a fairly robust & think leaf in normal conditions made for a tender winter leaf in the window....
Forellenschuss,
http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=105Fantastic romaine with interesting color- bronze specks on a delicate light green leaf. It is the variety to the left of the Bronze arrowhead in the picture above.
Lollo Rossa,
http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=219(OG)Tasty; we are bad to snip new growth off of this one before it matures. Nice sweet flavor when cut this way
Pablo,
http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=627Beautiful, tasty, tender. Top of the leaves are one color and the bottom are another, looks almost painted
Red Velvet
http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=977(OG)Deep red, (what we grew over the winter was almost purple) Tender tasty colorful, not bitter
Reine des Glaces.
http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=631(OG)The best part of this is the heart of the head once you’ve worked on the outer leaves. The inner leaves are curled together and are the sweetest tastiest morsels out of any of these; they had a nice crunch and are 3-d as they keep their shape after you separate the individual leaves of the core head.
We snip leaves off of multiple heads of each variety every evening and mix them all together for fantastic salads; the flavor and texture is out of this world and the colors makes for a visually pleasing presentation. I've been giving friends and neighbors a couple salads worth mixture of the lettuces over the last few days; they are well received to say the least.
