My mother grew spinach in the garden, picked and boiled the mature leaves and served them with dinner. They were wonderfully nutritious, she said, but I thought they tasted awful. She also grew iceberg lettuce and served it in salads. Now, iceberg lettuce has approximately the same nutritious value as a paper towel, but with the virtue of being much more crisp and not tasting bad. I ate the salads willingly.

Now the world has discovered baby spinach. It is just as nutritious as the mature leaves and tastes a whole lot better. I love it in salads and in subs. If only my mother had known that those leaves on her spinach plants were best eaten before they got so big.