Arugula is terrible

Arugula is bitter, although the Wikipedia entry optimistically describes it as "peppery." It tastes terrible. Why do people keep eating it? I hate arugula so much, I can't understand why anyone would like it. And yet a lot of people do, apparently. Otherwise they wouldn't keep adding it to the pre-bagged mixes of salad greens that I always buy.

The mystery of arugula is baffling to those of us who dislike it. There are many "vegetables for grownups" that I have begrudgingly come to like as I get older. It turns out that Brussels sprouts are pretty good when you roast them in the oven, and fresh spinach is nothing like the frozen chopped spinach that I was fed as a child.

But arugula? No.

According to Wikipedia, the ancient Romans thought that arugula was an aphrodisiac. They also thought that lettuce was its opposite. That should tell you something right there. If arugula is the opposite of lettuce, then what is it doing in our salads?

Arugula has also become a highly politicized salad green. The right wing Republicans constantly disdain the left's taste for "lattes and arugula." To conservatives, arugula represents everything they loathe about liberals: it's an effete, boutique herb that costs three times as much as plain old lettuce. It's snobby lettuce that is putting on airs. When Obama name-checked arugula in a speech about the price of agricultural goods, it only cemented arugula's liberal reputation.

Never mind that most of those same conservatives are making six-figure salaries and flying around on their own private jets. No one ever let logic get in the way of their class-shaming.

But in this one respect, even though I am a screaming liberal myself, I have to agree with Rush Limbaugh and co. What's wrong with good old lettuce? Is lettuce too cheap? Does it taste too good? Too tender to the tooth? What?

Image courtesy Flickr/ghirson