For a culinary kick, try lettuces, all kinds

This is a vigorous time of year in the garden, a time when lettuce turns craggy and flavorful, a time when arugula is so biting and bitter that you begin to understand why it’s sometimes called rocket: It seems to explode in your mouth.

Normally this column features lettuce and salad in spring, when greens are about the only produce available at farm markets. Spring greens are tender and sweet, a perfect antidote to the long cold months. Fall greens are more of a culinary kick in the pants. A group of scientists in Czechoslovakia actually did a study about 10 years ago of the nutritional value of fall versus spring lettuce. There were, in fact, differences but they were inconsistent: One year the spring lettuce had the most vitamin C, another year the fall lettuce had the most, other years, spring and fall had less than summer. It all depended (surprise) on the weather conditions for that year.

Perhaps what surprised you most in that last paragraph was that lettuce has a lot of vitamin C. Not all lettuces are created equal: The most nutritious lettuces are those with the deepest color in their leaves; also loose-leaf lettuces are more nutritious than head lettuces such as iceberg. But in fact, some lettuces provide more than 50 percent of  your daily recommended intake of vitamin A (prevents night blindness), about 45 percent of your daily vitamin C intake and more than 140 percent of your recommended daily vitamin K (which helps your blood to clot and helps your bones absorb calcium).

Some nutritionists recommend that you toss several different kinds of lettuce into your salad, because each variety has slightly different amounts of important nutrients. This is, of course, easier if you have a little garden plot out back with several types of lettuce growing. To have September lettuce, you have to save a few packs of seeds when you do your spring planting; after your summer lettuce has gone mad and turned brown and leggy, plant a new crop for fall. I just planted another packet two weeks ago and am curious to see what it will look like in late October.

And most farm markets are still open. If you have the space in your refrigerator, by all means let the professionals do the farm work for you. If they’re stored properly (not too much dampness), lettuce can last for a week or so.

Of course other vegetables (and fruits) are delightful in a salad — especially if you use a nice light dressing to tie them all together. If you want a truly healthful salad, avoid store-bought dressings; they tend to have a lot of sugar, salt, mayonnaise and preservatives. And besides, if you’re eating locally grown fall lettuce, you’ll find it’s so flavorful you don’t need to do much with it.

At this time of year, here’s what I recommend: a good squeeze of lemon juice, a crackle of freshly ground pepper, some table salt (lately, I’ve found that plain old table salt tastes better on my salads than coarse sea salt; and it’s iodized, which is a nice plus) and a nice, buttery olive oil. Another anti-gourmet discovery I’ve made this month: a really delicious olive oil, buttery and rich and consistent is Mazola extra virgin. And of course it costs about half as much as other, less tasty oils. If your grocer doesn’t carry it, ask for it. It’s fantastic.