Lettuce and ancient Egypt backstory. A little history for you

Do you know what I find most interesting? The fact that lettuce is such a casual food, we make salad, sandwiches and other dishes with it, but yet has such a dramatic backstory. When we see lettuce at the farm or a grocery store all packaged up looking nice and fresh, we think that it appeared there just because someone planted seed, but it was the ancient Egyptians who made it popular and spread it all over the world.

The fact that it has this history and origin is so cool for me.

The Egyptians did not grow it for the crunchy leafy part like many people do today, they had a completely different idea of what they would do with the plant, they had sort of a different purpose with the plant than we have.

Originally, the plant was a wild product that the Egyptians used primarily for the oil from the seed. This is not what you would put in a salad or on a sandwich, but the Egyptians saw the potential of the plant. It is always a good skill to recognize when something has a greater potential than it appears to have, and this was one of the many things that the Egyptians did well.

After years of cultivating lettuce, as time went on, the plant evolved into the lettuce that we know today. As the roots of the plant develop over time, the wild leaves became much more palatable, increasing in size and juiciness while it was also becoming less bitter. I see that process as being similar to how people grow and evolve through their lives. People develop their character through experience and relationships. The lettuce develops through its roots.

The best part is, even though they had turned lettuce into the leafy vegetable as it exists today, the Egyptians still used the seeds for oil. So in a way, nothing was wasted. I wish I had that type of mentality, especially when I clean out my refrigerator and find that I have not used the cilantro that I bought.