Saturday Spotlight - Golden Corn Salad

I'm belatedly joining Liz with a Saturday Spotlight post about one of my favorite salad greens that is in abundance in my garden right now.

Golden Corn Salad (aka Italian Corn Salad) is a very close cousin of mâche. Botanically it is Valerianella eriocarpa (meaning hairy seed) versus Valerianella locusta. It remains much closer to its wild form than does common mâche. I haven't found any selected or named varieties available in the US market, for that matter, I don't know of any US source of the seeds other than seed exchanges which is how I got my original seeds. It does not cross with the domesticated varieties of mâche which makes saving the seeds very easy. More on that below.

In appearance it differs from mâche in a few ways. The foremost difference is its chartreuse leaves which under certain conditions do take on a golden hue. It can get to be quite a bit larger than it's domesticated cousins, especially if it's not crowded. And the leaves tend to be more long and thin.

I think it is the culinary equal of any mâche that I've purchased or grown myself. It can be harvested and eaten as entire intact plants when it is young, which is what I've been doing for the past couple of weeks. I've also grown the plants under far less crowded conditions and harvested large individual leaves from the plants on a cut and come again basis. It's much easier to harvest the whole plants but they do grow quickly so the harvest period is shorter. I suppose I could try succession sowing but I can never seem to get around to it.

My favorite salad is a simple one, I like to toss the whole rosettes with fresh blood orange segments, perhaps some avocado, and either toasted sliced almonds or toasted sunflower seeds. A simple dressing of good vinegar (my favorites at the moment are Spanish merlot or moscatel) and my favorite extra virgin olive oil from McEvoy Ranch or toasted hazel nut oil, and salt and pepper. Sometimes I make the salad more substantial by adding chicken or smoked trout or salad shrimp. Some preserved sweet peppers and/or cucumbers are also a nice addition. And my latest add-in was hearts of palm which turned out to be quite nice.

In my zone 9b garden I find that it is best to grow it for a winter and early spring crop, it fills the salad green gap that occurs when the lettuce is bolting or damaged by cold. The plants are unharmed by the occasional frost or freeze (down to about 25ºF here). This season I thickly broadcast the seeds and scratched them into the soil and let the rain do the watering. I am finding that I like the thick sowing better than a thin sowing, the competition seems to keep the plants on the small side. It also makes for easy harvesting, I just cut out whole clumps of plants at the soil line.

Seed saving is really quite easy. Let the plants bloom and allow them to turn brown and dry. Gather the whole plants together before the seeds start to drop and put them into a large paper bag. Leave the bag in a dry spot and the seeds will collect in the bottom of the bag - you can give it a good shake now and then to help. Don't worry if the seeds scatter themselves around the garden before you collect all the plants, the will volunteer but I haven't found them to be weedy. The seeds will not germinate in warm soil, my volunteers don't appear until late autumn when the soil gets cold. Any unwanted volunteers are easily removed or even moved, they do transplant easily. I like to let volunteers grow in out of the way spots in the garden so that I can leave them undisturbed until they go to seed.

If you want to read more about this variety here's a good article by William Woys Weaver  (who was my original seed source through the Seed Savers Exchange).

If you are interested in trying this delicious salad green yourself please let me know in a comment below, I've got some 2010 seeds to spare and will be happy to either arrange a seed swap if you have something I might be interested in or I can send some seeds for a small charge to cover shipping expenses.