Choose Bibb lettuce with soft, buttery leaves, pale green color, and no brown spots or torn edges. Look for a free rosette head with no obvious veins or insect damage. Wash thoroughly and use within one to three days.
Bibb lettuce, sometimes called limestone or cabbage lettuce, is a variety of chicken head lettuce, and when choosing the best variety of Bibb lettuce, you should select heads that have a soft, buttery leaf texture. Some of the other characteristics to consider when choosing a good Bibb lettuce are the amount of lettuce you can use in a few days, as well as the color and condition of the leaves. Although most lettuce has pure green leaves, some butterhead lettuce varieties have pink-tipped leaves.
Lettuce leaf color is one of the first signs of good or bad condition when choosing any type of lettuce. Bibb lettuce should be pale green. Yellow or brown spots indicate poor quality lettuce. Although some lettuce has reddish tints, especially at the leaf edges, good lettuce does not have brown leaf edges.
Good quality lettuce is crunchy. Bibb lettuce is succulent, but not watery like common iceberg lettuce. You should avoid lettuce that has wilted leaves if you want sweet tasting, fresh salads. Slime lettuce is not appetizing.
Another indicator of good lettuce is the condition of the head. Good quality butterhead lettuce doesn’t form a tight head like denser iceberg lettuce. The leaves should form a free rosette. A good head of butterhead lettuce has leaves that curl together like rose petals sprouting from the central bud.
Some lettuces, such as the Bibb variety, have no obvious veins or the veins are less prominent than in other varieties. The veins should not be brown or discolored. When choosing a good head of Bibb lettuce, you should avoid any head that has torn leaves or jagged, torn leaf edges.
Generally, hydroponically grown lettuce is cleaner than field-grown plants. If you can’t help buying muddy or sandy lettuce, wash it thoroughly before using it. Good lettuce should be clean, but sometimes dirt or grit is unavoidable. Washing lettuce thoroughly can help discourage food poisoning.
Butterhead lettuces typically spoil relatively quickly after harvest. Just select the head size or the number of heads you can use within one to three days. This type of lettuce bruises easily and you should be careful when handling the lettuce. Bruised lettuce often becomes slimy.
When choosing Bibb lettuce, you should watch for insect damage. For example, cabbage looper can go through the leaves to the core. Warped leaves can indicate aphid or other insect damage. Another boring pest is the earthworm that enters a plant from the root system. Damaged leaves often have a crumpled appearance and tend to curl in an unnatural downward arc. When choosing a head of lettuce, you should choose firm, heavy heads that show no signs of weeds.
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