I’ve been waiting a while to make this Florida salad. Most of the ingredients in this salad are native or naturalized plants to Florida. Which means you can grow them in your yard without added supervision.
I’ve replaced:
- Store bought Romaine lettuce with Crepis Japonica.
- Store bought Tomatoes with Florida Everglades Tomatoes.
- Store bought Cucumbers with Creeping Cucumber: Melothria Pendula
Crepis grows all over here in Florida, it’s in the same family as Dandelion, and according the Green Deane, it has similar nutrition (as far as he can remember). It’s the closest I’ve found in taste to Romaine (minus the texture).
Future renditions of this salad will likely include wild onions/garlic/chives (something of this nature). And potentially ground papaya seed as a replacement for pepper. We’ll see.
Word of caution: Melothria Pendula should be eaten green only, preferably a little lighter green then the ones you see in my salad. See links above for more information.