What is arugula?

Answer 1

Arugula (Eruca sativa), is an edible annual plant, commonly known as salad rocket, roquette, rucola, rugula, or colewort. It is a member of the Brassicaceae family that includes kale, collards, turnip, mustard, Brussels sprouts, bok choy, napa cabbage, rapini, and watercress, among other amazing vegetables. Arugula is native to the Mediterranean region, from Morocco and Portugal in the west to Lebanon and Turkey in the east.

In addition to the leaves, the flowers (often used in salads as an edible garnish), young seed pods, and mature seeds are all edible.

Many people mistake arugula for lettuce, but it is actually an herb. It has a smooth, dark green leaf, similar to that of the dandelion. Its flavor is peppery and mustardy, and it is often used in salads, on Sandwiches, or mixed in pasta sauces. It is available year-round in the produce section of most retail grocery stores. Wash your arugula thoroughly upon bringing it home from the store, as it picks up a lot of sand and dirt when it grows.

Answer 2

Arugula is a green that is mainly used in salads. You can also use it for toppings on a Pizza as well as wilt it in a pot while cooking pasta. You can also use it to make soup and pesto. It can also replace lettuce in sandwiches.

Answer 3

Arugula is native to the Mediterranean region, from Morocco and Portugal in the west to Lebanon and Turkey in the east.

In ancient Rome, arugula was grown for both its leaves and seeds. Typical Roman meals included green salads, frequently comprising arugula, romaine, chicory, mallow, and lavender. The seed was used for flavoring oils, and was mentioned by various Roman authors as an aphrodisiac, most famously in a poem long ascribed to Virgil, Moretum, which contains the line: "et veneris revocans eruca morantuem" ("arugula excites the sexual desire of drowsy people"). It may have been for this reason that during the Middle Ages, monks were forbidden to grow arugula.

In 802, Charlemagne decreed that arugula was one of the pot herbs suitable for growing in gardens. Gillian Reilly, author of the Oxford Companion to Italian Food, wrote that because of its reputation as a sexual stimulant, arugula was "prudently mixed with lettuce, which was the opposite." Reilly continued that "nowadays rocket is enjoyed innocently in mixed salads, to which it adds a pleasing pungency."

Arugula was traditionally collected in the wild or grown in home gardens along with other herbs such as parsley and basil. It is now grown commercially from Italy to Iowa to Brazil and is available in supermarkets and farmers' markets throughout the world. It is also naturalized as a wild plant in temperate regions around the world, including northern Europe and North America. In India, the mature seeds are known as Gargeer.

In a 1960 New York Times article ("A Green by Any Name; Pungent Ingredient Is Cause of Confusion for City Shopper Arugula - or Rocket - Is the Secret of Experts' Salads") Craig Claiborne, the Times food critic, found the herb everywhere in New York City: "Most Italian chefs know [that Arugula] is the secret ingredient of their salads-about-town." He listed a half-dozen stores in the area that sold bundles of the stuff for fifteen to nineteen cents, about the price of spinach.

Before the 1980s, arugula was comparatively unknown in the English-speaking world outside of immigrant Italian communities and among New York devotees of Italian cooking. Arugula first gained popularity in the United States in the 1990s during the mania for all things Mediterranean, but by 2006, Vanity Fair writer and editor David Kamp gave his book about the spread of American mass-media culinary sophistication the prophetic title: The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation.

Answer 4

An arugula is one of three yellowish-flowered Mediterranean herbs of the mustard family, which are often eaten in salads.