Edible rooted chicory

As some of you will know, chicories (sikkori) are just about my favourite veggies, in part due to their flexibility providing edible cooked greens, salad greens in an incredible array of colours and forms, coffee surrogate, edible flowers, winter forced chicons and some are even perennial. A big advantage is that they are easy to grow here organically. This is an old picture from four years ago of the Edible rooted chicory “Di Soncino”! It is also easy to grow your own seed and they mature even up here! I never cook this root cultivar on its own as a side vegetable, but add them to many fried dishes and soups…

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3 thoughts on “Edible rooted chicory”

  1. Is it sweet ? Chicory can be horrible tasting, especially those not bleached. Do sweet varieties even exist ? Like a recessive mutant inhibiting the bitter compounds synthesis ? It’d be surprising it never appeared in atomic gardens, and a great advance to my opinion.

    1. To me it’s a pleasant bitterness, definitely not strong and easily disguised, if you are sensitive, in cooking. I’m much less sensitive than I was in the past, probably partly age, partly the fact that I gave up all sugar about 15 years ago and partly getting used to it. But there are still plants that I find horribly bitter, like Good King Henry :)

      1. I can’t tell for Good King Henry, but dark green wild dandelion growing in my garden is largely satisfying if you like. I know elders who eat them as greens. It makes me shiver.

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