Okay, What is a Microgreen?

The recent story published by the Associated Press headlining the word "Ginormous" as one of about 100 new entries in the soon-to-be publised Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, caught my attention.



Its not unusual for our culture to put words together to emphasize the meaning. "Ginormous" is the hybrid creation of "gigantic" and "enormous." Think what Hollywood would have done with this word in its advertizing of such movies as Titanic or King Kong. My heavens, the box office sales would have been off the charts.



And, before you think I have a problem with "Ginormous," stop in your tracks. I have always used the word "Humongous" to emphasize the impact of major events on history and trust me, "The impact was humongous."



A few of the other words that will be included in the new publication will be "IED," an improvised exploding device, and "crunk," a reference to southern rap music. Well, now perhaps I have a problem here. The IED has been responsible for numerous American deaths in Iraq--I would love for that word to have never existed. And rap music itself is offensive to my ears regardless of what term is used to describe it (I know some of you disagree.)



But, the word that really caught my attention was "microgreen." Somebody please tell me what is a "microgreen." The story describes a "microgreen" as a "shoot of a standard salad plant." Which leads me to the next big question.....What is a standard salad plant?



We have become a salad eating culture. I love salad. Its a part of my regular diet. I don't feel as though I have had a meal if I haven't had some sort of salad with my entree. Typically its a tossed salad. But I enjoy such vegtable-oriented dishes as cucumber and onions in vinegar, cole slaw and wilted lettuce.



So I am still wondering what a "standard salad plant" is.

Case in Point. When I think of salad plants I picture such things as iceberg lettuce, bib lettuce, leaf lettuce, swiss chard, spinach, endive, arugula, kale, radiccho, and escarole. Now I guess I will have to add "microgreen" to my vocabulary even though I have no idea what it means.



Perhaps "lettuce" should just be called "lettuce." Of coures,that might put the ditionary company out of business and destroy the need for our population to create new words. Maybe we should just create a new salad....Lets see I will have microgreen with a "radbeet" on the side topped with a "cucumroom" and plastered with "French-ranch" dressing....mmmmm sounds delicious.