Erba stella can be harvested at any time

Italian food can have funny names such as spaghetti, plural of spaghetto, meaning string, twine, or manicotti from the Italian, plural of manicotto, muff or sleeve, because it is a sleeve stuffed with cheese. Penne pasta got its name because it looks like the quill or a pen. Orzo, meaning barley, because it looks like a barleycorn, and vermicelli which translates as little worms.

But none of this prepared us for the whispered rumor of the oddest Italian food yet. My aunt Mary married uncle Hank, who was Marchigiano, from the Marche region of Italy. My mother once warned us that Marchgianos cooked their spaghetti sauce with fiery hot pepper and cinnamon!

Cinnamon in spaghetti sauce? I'd rather have Strangolapreti pasta, a thick pasta whose name literally means priest stranglers.

But cinnamon or not, the Marche region gives us a wonderful, traditional Italian dish, the misticana, or wild greens salad. Unlike the mild and less nourishing lettuce-based salads, misticana relies on peppery greens such as Erba Stella the Star Herb. Also called Minutina, this wild green with slender forked leaves like a deer's antlers is sometimes called Buck's Horn.

Erba stella (Plantago coronopus) is an herbaceous plant that is remarkably hardy and suited for a quick fall crop.

The crunchy, deeply-toothed leaves sprout from a flat basal rosette, and will regrow after cutting for a true cut and come again salad green. Even after it bolts, or shoots up flower stalks, the flowerheads remain tender and quite edible. For a continuous crop just plant every few days for a succession of small greens. The foot-tall leaves have a slightly salty and bitter taste that is surprisingly refreshing and tasty.

Seeds are available from local garden centers (seeds may be listed as Minutina) or by mail from nurseries such as Bountiful Gardens (www.bountifulgardens.org, 1712-D South Main Street, Willits CA 95490-4400; phone: 707-459-6410), Italian Seed and Tool (www.italianseedandtool.com, 743 Shore Road, Hollister, CA 95023-9427; phone: 831-637-2411) Seeds from Italy (www.growitalian.com, PO Box 3908, Lawrence, KS 66046; phone 785-748-0959) or Johnny's Selected Seeds (www.johnnyseeds.com, PO Box 299, Waterville, Maine 04903; phone 877-564-6697).

Sow erba stella seeds about 30 seeds per foot just barley covering them with no more than a quarter inch of soil. The seeds germinate quickly, sprouting in just six days on average. Once they are a few inches tall thin the plants to stand four to six inches apart. The plants you thin out are delicate addition to salads. Your main crop will take anywhere from 30 days to 50 days to grow, but can be harvested at any time.

Erba stella may even survive mild winters, providing nutritious greens in early spring. Like all salad greens you can fertilize with a weak solution of fish emulsion or any good organic fertilizer. Keep the plants well watered but not soggy. You can even put some in pots. They often survive freezing temperatures. Being pretty much a wild weed they need very little attention and will be one of the easiest vegetables that you can grow.

And as for Aunt Mary making Uncle Hank's spaghetti sauce with hot pepper and cinnamon? Late in life Aunt Mary confessed that as a new bride she was having family over for the first time and nervously grabbed the cinnamon instead of the black pepper. To overcompensate she added more and more pepper to try to hide the taste of the cinnamon. The family politely ate and left the table shaking their heads, muttering forever after about Uncle Hank being crazy marchigiano who put cinnamon in their spaghetti sauce. Perhaps a misticana with erba stella would have helped.