From Humble Roots : Watercress: Growers try to stimulate demand, but countering the greens’ snooty image is a tough row to hoe.

Burly and balding, with thick, work-roughened hands, Al Beserra tenderly plucks a bundle of fresh watercress from a glistening pile.

Around him, stiff cardboard boxes lurch down a creaky conveyor belt, past laborers who insert wax-paper linings, shovel in crushed ice, and pack the leafy bundles on top.

It may end up an aristocratic delicacy, layered with mayonnaise on dainty squares of white bread, but watercress comes from decidedly working-class roots.

And the handful of Ventura County farmers who cultivate the leafy greens would like to advertise these humble origins--if only to shake watercress’ snooty image and convince the masses to try it.

“With the health craze and with all the ethnic vegetables out there, people are willing to go out and try new things,” said Beserra, whose family has been harvesting watercress along the Santa Clara River in Fillmore for three generations. “I sure would like to see them try watercress.”

Beserra swears by a refreshing, all-natural drink made from crushed watercress, ice and honey. But recognizing that such a beverage might be a little too wacky even for Southern Californians, he quickly suggests alternative uses: as a garnish, on a ham sandwich, in a garden salad.

“It’s a main item on our table,” he said proudly.

This winter’s heavy rains have been wonderful for watercress, a six-inch leafy member of the mustard family with the scientific name of nasturtium officinale.

Because watercress grows year-round and can be harvested every 35 to 45 days, farmers can produce thousands of bundles a month as long as they keep the plants irrigated with cool water. The price remains reasonably steady month in and month out, so watercress farmers can count on a certain income per acre.

Their only problem: finding a local market for the gourmet item, which looks like baby spinach but carries a slightly bitter, peppery kick.

“It has sort of a reputation--most people associate it with buying a watercress sandwich on Rodeo Drive,” lamented Danny Baltazar, whose family grows dozens of specialty herbs on farms throughout California, including 10 acres of watercress in Fillmore.

Baltazar ships most of his crop to the East Coast and Canada, where “they’re very big on watercress and use it as part of their daily diet,” he said approvingly.

So far, he hasn’t had any luck convincing mainstream Californians to toss watercress into soups, salads or stir-fry, despite the handy recipes he affixes to each bundle that he ships out.

At only 16 calories per serving, watercress doesn’t really stick to the ribs. Though it’s chock full of iron and high in fiber, the effete-looking plant seems unlikely to endear itself to the meat-and-potatoes crowd.

But gourmands such as Pam Herbert, who admits to craving watercress sandwiches “on the odd occasion,” insist the tender leaves can hold their own, at least when compared with similar-looking vegetables.

“It has a far stronger flavor than lettuce or spinach,” said Herbert, a transplanted Brit who works at the Victoria Restaurant and Pub in Ventura.

Her ultimate accolade: “You can eat it on its own without thinking you’re missing something.”

On the other hand, many of those who don’t eat it at all don’t think they’re missing anything, either.

“Watercress? I don’t know what it is. I’ve never even heard of it,” Thousand Oaks resident Ron Uskali said the other day as he loaded a wire shopping basket with run-of-the-mill vegetables. “Gosh, and I thought I was kind of cool, too.”

Tucked in the specialty vegetable rack, nearly buried among the burdock root and anise, the few limp sprigs of watercress on display in a Thousand Oaks health-food store suffered from a noticeable wimp factor.

Indeed, most shoppers walked blithely past the watercress, ignoring the display tag urging them to fork over $1.79 for a thin bundle of leaves high in vitamins A and B2 and full of calcium and potassium.

“I’ve heard of it,” Shanelle Philhower said somewhat dubiously, pausing to contemplate the stacks of twisted, dirt-encrusted roots and vaguely ominous-looking bulbs in the gourmet vegetable rack. “But I don’t really know what watercress is.”

Pointing to a daikon, an ugly relative of the radish, she asked, “Maybe it’s this?” No such luck. “Or this?” she tried again, fingering a crisp green-and-white endive.

Ventura County’s watercress growers smart at such widespread ignorance. After all, no one has to ask what a lemon is. Everyone’s heard of strawberries. And who couldn’t pick out a navel orange from a pile of fruit?

But they persevere with their obscure crop, earning decent profits with a year-round harvest--as long as there’s enough water in the Santa Clara River to irrigate the roots. Most also grow other specialty plants, such as culinary herbs or flowers.

“During the drought, our operation, like many others, came to a standstill,” rancher Baltazar said. “Now it’s definitely rebounding.”

That’s good news for Andrea Bloom, the proprietor of Tottenham Court in Ojai. The scores of guests who troop into her restaurant each afternoon and plunk down $11.50 apiece for high tea expect watercress sandwiches, she said--more for the name than the flavor.

“It tastes just like any form of lettuce,” Bloom said. “You could use parsley, I guess, but it’s not the same feeling.”

Voicing an Anglophile bias that growers hope will migrate to this side of the Atlantic, she added, “Watercress is just the thing you have with tea.”

Aristocratic pretensions aside, watercress is starting to catch on--at least a little--among health-food junkies. Produce managers at Mrs. Gooch’s, a chain of specialty supermarkets, say they sell several cases of organic watercress in each outlet every week.

And farmer Beserra is developing a new kind of packaging that will prolong watercress’ shelf life and make it stand out more in the supermarket.

Thousand Oaks resident Anne Chilcott counts herself among the dedicated watercress users. Making a beeline for the leafy bundles on a recent afternoon, she said she couldn’t wait to boil it up in a mushroom-barley soup.

Chilcott’s kids don’t like watercress--”it’s bitter, especially when it’s raw,” she admitted, as her 2-year-old son Kenji fidgeted next to a towering display of red cabbage.

But she’s been devoted to the stuff ever since reading in a macrobiotic cookbook that watercress helps cleanse the body.

“Maybe people don’t like it because it’s kind of a weed,” Chilcott said. “But it’s really good to use in the springtime for cleaning the liver and gall bladder.”

Watching all the fuss about watercress in his aisles brought back a flood of memories for produce manager Ruben Mondragon.

“I used to eat watercress when I was married, because my wife bought it and cooked it,” Mondragon said. “But actually, I’m not a big user any more.”