Red Swiss Chard

Valentine’s Day is soon upon us, couples and solos alike. Here’s to a “heart-healthy” vegetable—chard—that, in one of its varieties comes in the color red, all the more so for your valentine.

No one is quite sure why this leafy green is called “Swiss” chard, mainly by speakers of English only. Other languages and peoples call it merely “chard” or prefix that word with one of its colors. We Americans invented the “rainbow chard” label for the array of pink, magenta, orange, and off yellow that chard can sport in the produce section.

For white chard, the most widely grown and oldest variety, the British often use a more precise color—celadon—a sort of jade-tinged ivory.

The “Swiss” part of the name is odd because chard’s scientific Latin name is Beta vulgaris var. cicla, this last term a probable reference to Sicily, for chard originated in the Mediterranean Basin and remains very popular as an eating vegetable in southern France, throughout Italy and on the Sea’s many islands. The Balearic Islanders make of its leaves a pocket filled with pine nuts and raisins, then steamed, a clear throwback to the Arabian influence in the region.

As its Latin name suggests, it is a member of the beet family, though, unlike the beet, chard forms no edible root. We eat only its magnificent leaves and sturdy stems (which sometimes reach two feet in length), considered by ancient Mediterraneans as a substitute for celery.

Because the ancient Latin and old French word for chard meant “thistle,” one scholar believes that the prefix “Swiss” was used to distinguish chard unmistakably from thistle, a much gnarlier and not easily approached, well, weed. (An edible version of thistle is grown and called “cardoon.”) But again, why “Swiss,” no one appears to know or by whom.

Chard is sturdier than spinach and is also less bitter. It shares with spinach the bitterness of oxalic acidity (you know this acidity as the defining bitterness of rhubarb) but, in chard, the acidity is tempered with greater sweetness.

Unless the chard leaf is very young and small, cooks worldwide need to prepare separately its leaves and stems—perhaps why so many do not, and simply pitch the stems. Chard has been called “the chicken of greens” because its two parts, like the fowl’s breast and thigh, need different or varying applications of heat and are difficult to cook simultaneously and together.

But the stems have more “chard-y” flavor than the leaves, so cook them as well. Cleaned and chopped, stem pieces take a mere few minutes more heat. They also add a pleasant crunch. It’s no good to toss away all that.

Sautéed chard leaves retain more texture than the same treatment of spinach; they soften toothsomely well before disassembling. To render them silken like raw, damp seaweed, cook them in a wet environment (in soups, or with soft-cooked eggs, or under a sauce) for a bit longer than a quick sauté.

For a recipe for “Red Chard Ribbons,” click here.  

For a recipe for “Red Chard, Beans, and Pancetta,” click here.