We hope to enjoy our first mess of kilt lettuce this week. The dish is good anytime, but we’ve come to look at it as one of the highlights of spring of the year.
Jim and I included the recipe in our new cookbook “Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food – Recipes & Stories from Mountain Kitchens.”
Here’s the recipe from the book:
KILT LETTUCE
Leaf lettuce
Onions
Hot grease
Salt and pepper
Each Spring I look forward to the first kilt lettuce of the season. Various names are used for the traditional Appalachian dish: killed lettuce, kill lettuce, wilted lettuce, lettuce and onions, killed salad, or the word “kilt” used here. Kilt lettuce should be served immediately after making. The dish uses fresh leaf lettuce from the garden or branch lettuce that grows wild along the creek. The way Granny taught me was to begin by picking and washing leaves of lettuce, making sure to dry off as much water as possible. Sometimes I wash mine early in the morning and leave it drying on a towel in the fridge. Cut up several green onions, including tops, and mix with torn lettuce in a bowl, adding salt and pepper to taste. Pour hot bacon or streaked meat (salt pork) grease over mixture. Be prepared for lots of hissing and popping when the grease hits the lettuce. Toss and serve quickly. It doesn’t take much grease; a little goes a long way.
Tip: Kilt Lettuce goes wonderfully with cornbread and soup beans.
If you’re interested in picking up a copy of the cookbook both Jim and I are selling the it directly, but it will also be available at bookstores across the country and on Amazon.
I’m using the Blind Pig and The Acorn Etsy store to sell the book. You can find the listing here. If you don’t shop online, you can also mail payment to me. Contact me at blindpigandtheacorn@gmail.com for more details.
If you live outide of the US you can purchase the book on Etsy but I would suggest you check the shipping on Etsy and Amazon to compare and get the best price.
If you would like for me to sign your cookbook please make sure to ask. Look for the personalization drop down menu on Etsy just above the add to cart button.
Are you a kilt lettuce fan like we are? Miss Cindy’s family loved the dish, but they added vinegar to the grease just before tossing with the lettuce and onions.
Last night’s video: Getting the Garden Beds Ready for Planting & Sharing Family News.
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I always looked forward to kilt lettuce and cornbread in spring. My mother insisted on raising red lettuce, like Ruby Red, which is much sweeter than the green lettuces. Being of large part Scotch (Scots) descent, we called it “kilt” but used “kill” as in “I’m going to kill the lettuce now”. (We also said “spilt milk” and so forth.)
We also gathered tangle-gut, aka “two-leaf”, which is Claytonia virginica, and known to some as “spring beauty.” We kilt it in the same way as the lettuce, with onions and salt. It is a sweet green and very tasty.
I’m from the Midwest – we make this + a nice capful (or more) of vinegar and salt.
I grew up in NE Ohio, and we thought it was so special when my Mom made a wilted lettuce salad. She added sugar and vinegar, and always crumbled bacon and hard boiled eggs in it, along with the lettuce and green onions. I just always figured it was a German thing, because if the vinegar, sugar and bacon! I’m loving the cookbook – I’ve already tried quite a few dishes and made notes in the margins!
I have not heard of kilt lettuce, but I think maybe I have heard of creases/creece/creese but I do not think I ever knew what it was. It sounds good though. I will have to try to make this dish. The added boiled egg sounds good with all the other fixins too.
So delicious!
I send you a card today y cookbook $ in it. I look forward to receiving it. Thank you!
do you know what they make kraut out of in Germany?
My Dad loved lettuce, onions & bacon grease & would make it often. I was the only one other than Dad who liked it. Dad called it “Rabbit Food.” My prayers are still going up for Miss Cindy & your entire family. I know our merciful & loving God can do anything . Sending hugs to your family.
Have been busy outdoors and I’m finally catching up a little with the blog. Kilt lettuce is wonderfully delicious, especially with bacon grease mixed with a splash of vinegar and a teaspoon of sugar. It makes a lovely sweet, sour and savory salad. It’s the only salad where I feel full after eating it.
Learned this from my elderly Nebraska neighbor. She was of German descent.
my family called it dandelions, we had it in the spring before the flowers came. otherwise it was too bitter. now we have it for Easter dinner every year since my mom pasted. I remember my uncle used to go to the church yard and picked the dandelions, people around here Maryland thought he was just cleaning the church yard. we had it with dandelions or lettuce, mashed potatoes, spring onions, bacon. poured the bacon dressing over, and ate all together. never had it with anything else. also we beat it with an egg, water, flour, vinegar, bacon grease, sugar. We also use gravy over fresh vegetables sometimes. love your posts, praying for family. Sandy
Kilt lettuce. The fancy french restaurants with their vinaigrette pour salade must have been to Appalachia an’ stole the idea.
Tell me Cindy that we are all holding her up in our prayers asking for God’s tender mercies to be bestowed upon her. I know Matt must be tied up in knots. We pray for him, all of you, too.
I will be sure to check out your cookbook on Amazon since I’m a prime member. I think Kilt lettuce, cornbread, and soup beans sounds delicious !
Growing up and now too, we make basically the same thing using mustard greens, onions, bacon grease, and bacon or fatback, but we call it Indian salad. Lots of folks here in NW Alabama prepare and eat this meal as gardens start to “come in”.
My mother made this salad with vinegar and a small bit of brown sugar. Pieces of bacon too. I loved it.
I’ve heard it called kilt, killed and wilted lettuce. My folks called it scalded lettuce. I didn’t call it anything! I wouldn’t eat anything green when I was a kid. I still don’t eat much of anything green except cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. Cauliflower is white but the leaves are green. I love green beans but they don’t count as greens.
This is a wonderful dish, but I actually like boiled eggs sliced on the side to go with mine. Tipper, I got my cookbook Friday and I love it! I have spent so much time reading it. The pictures, stories and of course the recipes are wonderful!! You and Jim did a fantastic job!! I will treasure this cookbook for years to come. Thank you so much.
When I was 16 and worked at a local family style restaurant, we served this every spring. They would use fresh lettuce, or lettuce and spinach, with green onions, and the hot bacon grease with a little bit of vinegar, but they also topped it with a hard boiled egg, quartered, and a small tomato, quartered, we got a lot of orders for it back then. PS…… I received my cookbook, but I’m saving it for when I have time to just sit and read every page, savoring it!
In my area folks call it Wilted Lettuce. I’ve never tried it but it sounds good. Once my lettuce and onions come it I’ll have to give it a try.
I have fresh spinach but no lettuce – and fresh green onions. The bacon grease, sugar, vinegar combo sounds really good and I really need to try this dish. I’m going to give it a twist using just what I have fresh from the garden – can’t hurt.
If a person eats kilt lettuce, they have to have cornbread, soup beans, and fried taters to go with it. There was a time I craved a mess of lettuce so bad that I bought a bunch from Kroger and tried to wilt it. It worked okay but was a little bit tough. Mom turned each leaf of lettuce and ‘looked’ it front and back before she washed it and wrung it out by hand. She looked every handful of soup beans too.
I’m keeping Miss Cindy and her family in my daily prayers. The doctors gave a family friend little hope when he was diagnosed with brain cancer, yet he lived for years after the surgery and treatment. Doctors don’t know everything!
My mom is from West Virginia and she always made wilted lettuce with bacon grease, vinegar, and a pinch of sugar. Unfortunately, this is one dish I never learned to like.
You forgot the vinegar LOL. I love this stuff. I can always find away to make healthy stuff fattening, but I’ve looked forward to this every spring since I was small girl and that was a long, long time ago.
One of my favorites. We call it wilted lettuce at our house and use turkey bacon and have to add some oil, not quite the same as Mom made it, but still yummy with pinto beans, taters and corn bread.
Praying for Miss Cindy and for Gods mercy and eternal understanding.
I have always liked “lettuce and onions”. My son likes it too but my husband hates onions so every spring my son and I will have a lunch of it with bacon and cornbread. For several years I have had no success with growing lettuce so I have to buy leaf lettuce. Not as good as from the garden but we still enjoy it. One spring my lettuce went to seed and that fall the whole garden was seeded & it was so pretty. Mama was visiting and we picked a whole garbage bag for her to take home!
Tipper,
I hear some referring to Kilt Lettuce as Wilted Lettuce and figure they are not Appalachian natives, which I might be wrong. Some people add vinegar and milk to their Kilt Lettuce which gives it a somewhat different flavor. We always had cornbread with lettuce, and someone seemed to, very often, comment that they could make a “meal” just out of cornbread and Kilt Lettuce.
Our first Kilt Lettuce in Northeast TN was known as “Branch Lettuce” because it grows wild beside small mountain streams, “branches”. This lettuce always “came in” before our garden lettuce.
Oh, Tipper, my cookbook arrived Saturday and I have spent most of the weekend reading it!! You and Jim Casada have created a masterpiece — for those of us so far away, it is the next best thing to living in your holler! I love the terrific recipes, of course, but also the pictures (old and new) and the chatty stories and comments! Thanks to both of you for your hard work in producing this wonderful book.
I’m trying to “cut down” and kilt lettuce is definitely a good place to start. With Crohn’s, kilt lettuce would either kill or cure me. Lol. Now about that wonderful new cookbook that’s all the rage in Appalachia and beyond written by Tipper and Jim Casada- today is the official release date and I’m very excited and proud for you both!!!! My copy was spoken for a week ago or better from Amazon. They had your cookbook for purchase at a pre- release locked in price! I grabbed it and growled!!! It should be here soon and I cannot hardly wait! Congratulations once again for the accomplishment! Also, I’m praying for Miss Cindy and you all- her family! Blessings to you this fine spring day!
There’s simply nothing better than a big plate of spring lettuce and onions with hot bacon grease poured on top to kill it. Of course, a few soup beans and some corn bread are extra treats. Enjoy that Appalachian life.
We had a big mess of wilted lettuce last week from our garden & my recipe calls for some vinegar & a little bit of sugar, too. We may have over-planted our lettuce in our first big 2 family raised beds. We’re eyeing that space for something else- maybe beets or Swiss chard. I wanted plenty for supper that night to feed 5 of us, along with pork chops and mashed potatoes- you know how it wilts down when the hot grease hits it. But even after picking MORE than enough lettuce leaves (3 different varieties) you can’t even tell it’s been picked. I guess that’s not a bad problem to have. It sure was good, but I don’t think any of us are craving it again just yet.
My dad couldn’t wait each spring for his first mess of creasie greens. My sister and I were sent out with a clean pillowcase to pick around the edges of the fields. Sometimes, they would be the only green showing, and it took that pillowcase packed full to make enough greens for a family of eight. Mama fried steak a lean’ and we ate that along with the greens and onions. I liked to crumble corn bread over mine before pouring the hot grease over all of it. We need to send these comments to our cardiologists, And watch them cringe! I wouldn’t go back and change a thing, although I might not eat as much streak o lean grease at one sitting! Nahh…I would.
My mother mixed the bacon grease, vinegar and a little sugar, got it hot then poured over the lettuce or creese to wilt/kill it. She would sometimes add fresh radishes sliced real thin. We loved it mixed in the pinto beans especially the syrup!
we called it wilted lettuce where I’m from (Indiana). We also added drained boiled potatoes to it. wow, my mouth is watering .
Kilt lettuce was one of my momma’s favorite things. She said growing up they could hardly wait for spring to hunt the mountains for fresh greens.
I received the cookbook on Saturday and have had my nose stuck in it. I love everything about it! There are very few recipes that are different from our family. It’s funny how that is.
I laughed when I came to the Pawpaws. I heard Momma and Daddy talk about eating them growing up. They do grow here but not abundantly. A friend gave us some and I made the perdiest loaf of bread. I have never been so sick afterwards. It didn’t hurt anyone else. I had no idea that some people could become really sick and I was one of them. I tell everyone who has never eaten them that pawpaws should come with a warning.
May y’all have a blessed day and may the Lord keep you wrapped in His love!
My green onions are not yet ready, but I can purchase them to go along with the lettuce that is ready in my raised-bed part of my garden. I had forgotten about that dish til you reminded me yesterday. We are praying for Miss Cindy and the medical professionals that will be guiding her path of recovery. The scary word that starts with a ‘C’ is so dauting and have more unknowns than knowns. It is more horrible for the victim but the relatives of that victim are affected as well. Let Matt know that we know he is as affected as she is and we are praying for him as well, whatever the result may be. God’s will be done for sure and God Bless you all.
While turkey hunting last weekend I picked some branch lettuce and ramps. I had the lettuce and ramps kilt in grease with fried taters (I’m a country boy) and cornbread. This is a meal I enjoy a few times each spring during turkey season.
I don’t know if it’s been colder this spring or what, my ramp patches have already died down this year. I went to dig me another mess this weekend and the ramp leaves were already yellow. I think we got a light frost the first of last week and I guess it got them.
creece, and or creese, I found the name at google, my granny fixed it with bacon grease over it, and some chopped green onion
my granny fixed some she called creases! I think it was a wild lettuce, I don’t know,! God bless you Tipper, God bless your family in Jesus name