Leeks are new to me. I’d heard of them, seen chefs use them on tv shows, watched Alton Brown as he shared his tips on how to easily clean them, but I’d never actually used them. Well I decided to try out a recipe that called for them and I was pleasantly surprised by the taste as well as how easy they were to prepare. The taste is a mild onion with a hint of grass-y herbal flavor and maybe just a touch of fennel-like licorice. At least that’s what I taste:)
They are part of the Allium family so are related to onions and garlic:
The leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of Allium ampeloprasum, the broadleaf wild leek. The edible part of the plant is a bundle of leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a stem or stalk. Historically, many scientific names were used for leeks, but they are now all treated as cultivars of A. ampeloprasum.[1] The name 'leek' developed from the Anglo-Saxon word leac.
A little history:
The leek is one of the national emblems of Wales, worn along with the daffodil (in Welsh, the daffodil is known as "Peter's leek", Cenhinen Bedr) on St. David’s Day. According to one legend, King Cadwaladr of Gwynedd ordered his soldiers to identify themselves by wearing the vegetable on their helmets in an ancient battle against the Saxons that took place in a leek field.[14]
Shakespeare, for example, refers to the custom of wearing a leek as an “ancient tradition” in Henry V. In the play, Henry tells the Welsh officer Fluellen that he, too, is wearing a leek “for I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.”
