O lettuce, wherefore art thou wilted?

Last week, on Thursday morning before the farmers market opened that afternoon at the mall, my wife and I were driving around one of Cape Girardeau's many lovely residential areas when I saw something that made me smile.

In someone's backyard there was a small garden plot with several tomato plants. It was what was around the plot that got my attention: an electric fence.

Longtime readers will recall my many and futile efforts to grow vegetables while battling our evil deer population -- not to mention the marauding rabbits who mow down anything the deer leave behind.

At one time -- that was the year of the raised garden bed with the anti-bird (or any other animal) netting -- I managed to actually get a few pounds of ripe tomatoes. Estimated cost of production: about $63 a pound, according to my careful calculations.

Clearly, home-grown vegetables can be a financial disaster.

Besides, the folks who bring produce to the farmers market take on the risks of foul weather and invading animals and sell their wares at reasonable prices -- certainly a huge savings over my outrageous investment.

Last week, during our drive, I was reminded that those tomatoes I grew could have cost much more than $63 a pound if I had installed an electric fence. "Thank goodness for the farmers market," I told my wife.

We went that afternoon looking for asparagus, and there was asparagus to be had. But one of our favorite stands also had freshly harvested leaf lettuce suitable for wilting. It said so right there on the hand-lettered sign next to the lettuce.

When my wife and I were growing up, eating wilted lettuce was a rite of spring. Both families, it turned out, favored the Black Seeded Simpson variety of lettuce. And when the crisp leaves were ready to pick there was a window of a few days that the lettuce would be suitable for harvesting and wilting.

It was, in our collective memories, no big deal for our mothers to send us out to gather leaf lettuce along with red radishes and green onions. Soon there would be a giant bowl of wilted lettuce on the dinner table next to a cast-iron frying pan filled with steaming hot cornbread.

So, instead of asparagus, we bought three bunches of lettuce, a couple of bunches each of radishes and onions, and headed home to prepare our feast. There was a pan of cornbread left over from a recent supper of vegetable beef soup, so that part was done. We have finally figured out a sure-fire way to reheat cornbread so it tastes like a fresh batch. Our attention then was focused on preparing the wilted lettuce.

As you know, it has rained a lot recently, even in Southern Illinois where our lettuce was grown. When it rains on leaf lettuce, mud tends to splash all over the green leaves. This mud can't be simply rinsed off. It has to be washed off, leaf by leaf. By leaf by leaf by leaf by leaf. You get my drift.

And the radishes and onions have to be prepped, too.

Then there is the wilting factor. What wilts all that lettuce is hot bacon grease. The bacon has to be fried. The grease has to be drained. The bacon has to be chopped up. Once everything is ready, the lettuce is dressed with salt and pepper and vinegar. Then comes the hot bacon and bacon grease. The huge mound of lettuce you spent so much time washing and chopping shrinks, right before your very eyes, into a small wilted pile.

Folks, preparing our wilted-lettuce feast literally took all afternoon. If we had made cornbread from scratch, there would have been another chunk of time devoted to the meal.

And to think: Our mothers did this several nights in a row during leaf-lettuce season. And it seemed to take no time at all.

So here's our wilted lettuce recipe:

3 bunches of leaf lettuce

2 bunches of green onions

2 bunches of red radishes

8 slices of thick bacon

Vinegar

Salt

Pepper

Clean lettuce and carefully check for bugs and worms. Chop lettuce. Clean and slice onions and radishes. Fry bacon, retaining all of the bacon grease. Mix lettuce, onions and radishes with salt and pepper and vinegar to taste. Reheat bacon and bacon grease. Pour hot bacon and grease mixture over mixture of lettuce, onions and radishes. Serve immediately with hot buttered cornbread.

Serves four, if everyone is hungry.

Preparation time: All afternoon (for two people, even longer if it's just you.)

Our wilted lettuce was fantastic. We may do it again in a few years.

I hope that electric fence does what it's supposed to do. There's another family that enjoys $63-a-pound veggies.

Hooray for the farmers market.

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.