Watercress is a peppery green herb that is often used in salads and sandwiches. It can be grown from seed and prefers cool weather and shallow water. Watercress has a history of being used to treat scurvy and is related to other cresses such as pepper cress, wintercress, and earthcress.
Watercress, a green in the mustard family, is related to kale and kale, but has a life away from the greens and pork of Southern-style cooking. Many people may associate watercress with beautiful sandwiches made for tea, but that’s just one area where it shines.
Watercress is a European perennial herb, Nasturtium officinale, that has been naturalized in the United States and is also cultivated. It is not related to the flower called nasturtium. In the wild, it is often found near streams and creeks. It prefers to grow in shallow water and cool weather. Watercress can be started from seed indoors and transferred outdoors in flow beds. It should be harvested before it flowers and should be kept refrigerated, but not for too long. It must be thoroughly washed before use.
Known for its peppery flavor, watercress is used as a green and as a side dish. It is often used to flavor sandwiches and often appears in salads, where it is usually combined with some greens or milder tasting greens or citrus fruits. It can also be wilted and served as a green, used to flavor dumplings or savory mousses, or serve as an ingredient in soups ranging from Chinese watercress soup to chilled cream of watercress soup to potato, leek, watercress soup.
Watercress is probably the most popular of the watercress, and for many people it may be the only one recognizable. Others include pepper cress or sai yeung choy, Lepidum sativum; winter dress or yellow rocket, Barbarea vulgaris; and mountain cress or ground cress, Barbarea verna. Pepper cress is mainly grown in northwestern Europe, where it is harvested as sprouts. Wintercress is a hardy plant, rich in vitamin C, which grows in Eurasia, North Africa and the Appalachians. Earthcress, unlike the others, grows on land and is grown in southwestern Europe and England.
Historically, watercress was used to treat scurvy. Called “St. Patrick’s Cabbage “in Ireland, it is thought to be the plant designated by the term sorrel. The Greek general Xenophon made his soldiers eat him in the 4th century BC, and the Romans tried it as a preventative of baldness.
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