Ah millennials, your pink has done it again.
When the simple things step into the spotlight, only great things can happen, right? This time its lettuce on the old gram. You may have already been rosy-cheeked by the influx of pink radicchio brightening up your feeds, but in case you've been MIA, there's still time to blush over these fine leaves.
This variety of radicchio - also called Radicchio del Veneto or La Rosa del Veneto - is in Verona, Italy, with southern France, following suit as the second largest producer as well as more recently some parts of the US and Mexico. It's a late-bloomer in the cooler months and , the radicchio is only grown for a specific period of time before being harvested, replanted and then covered by sand to block out any sunlight from reaching the stem.
So what do they taste like? The chicory-like leaves are slightly sweet, not very bitter, with a crisp crunch - perfect salad fodder. While it's more subtle in flavour than it's radicchio relatives, thanks to its blush La Rosa is a more striking and rather popular addition to any mixed salad. And if you need to go there, it also doubles-up beautifully a hair accessory - before the chop, of course.
While radicchio is certainly nothing new, it's been appearing more recently across social feeds. Sorry Australia, even though there doesn't seem to be a producer or importer for this particular pink leaf variety down here, we'll just have to get excited over the many other at our disposal and of course, sit back and let our social feeds lead our imagination.
One thing's for sure, it's one photogenic leaf and perhaps it's time our salads got a little prettier in pink. #saladsofinstagram
