Mesclun

Mesclun is a mixture of small, young salad leaves, harvested while tender and sold and eaten together as a single blend. The name comes from the Provencal verb mesclar, meaning to mix thoroughly, and the blend is tied to Provence in southern France, where local lore credits the farmers around Nice, each of whom brought a prized personal mix of baby greens to the market. The traditional blend combines chervil, arugula, leafy lettuces and endive, though cooks and growers also add baby spinach, chard, mustard greens, dandelion, frisee, mizuna, mache, radicchio and sorrel according to season and taste. The word for such a mix is fairly recent in print, and the blend reached North American restaurants and farm stands in the early 1980s, where it is now often sold as spring mix, with a dozen or more varieties of baby leaf in one pack.