Watercress is one of the oldest eaten leaf vegetables. It’s a mustard relative that delivers a slightly bitter but forthright peppery bite and gets its name because of where it grows: in or near water. The long root system of watercress sends out shoots that creep along the bottom of ponds and springs, fostering hollow stems that rise above the water’s surface to bear dark green, nutritious leaves.
Their antioxidant and phytochemical powers have long been recognized in Europe, North Africa, and Asia. In England during the early 19th-century, it was first commercially grown for its historical medicinal value and soon became a staple of the working class diet.
Packaged in bunches, it was eaten like ice-cream from a cone or between bread in a sandwich for breakfast. If families were too poor, they ate watercress by itself. Thus it became a wholly different kind of bread.
- thanks to http://www.goodnessgreeness.com/.
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