Chicory in the Garden

For the past several years, I have planted a mix of lettuces in the garden called Mesclun Mix.  The word Mesclun is from the French word, mescla, and means mix or mixture.  True to the meaning, the mix contains an assortment of the following lettuces: spinach, arugula, chard, mustard greens, endive, dandelion, and radicchio. This isn't a big favorite at our house because of the sharpness or heat (spiciness) of the taste in a salad.  While I like spicy things, for some reason, there is an overpowering aroma and 'peppery' taste in this mix that I don't like in a salad.

Because it doesn't get eaten, the plants grow tall in the Spring and early Summer and end up blooming. The blooms of this particular plant brighten up the garden with nice color.  I researched to see which one of the lettuces made this beautiful flower.

Flowers in the Garden

I was surprised to find that this bloom is the flower of the endive plant.  The endive plant is also called Chicory.  Mystery solved.

The Flower of the Endive Plant

Wow!  That is interesting to me.  We drink CDM Coffee & Chicory at our home.  We used to drink Community Coffee Dark Roast exclusively at home and that's what I still drink at work, but at home, it's CDM Coffee for us.  CDM stands for Cafe du Monde, which is a world famous coffee house in New Orleans.  Chicory has a distinct, strong taste.  The historical reason for using chicory in coffee is interesting as well.  

New Orleans, with a strong French heritage, has always had a large number of coffee drinkers.  During the Civil War, the Port of New Orleans was blocked by a Union naval blockade.  Rather than go without coffee, the Confederates substituted ground chicory for coffee and 'cut' their coffee with it.  It stretched the dwindling supplies of coffee, was economical, and gave a distinctive taste that still permeates the New Orleans coffee market today, as "New Orleans" coffee generally has about 30% chicory content.

CDM Coffee by Reily Foods from New Orleans, LA

Surprisingly, chicory is naturally caffeine free.  Just due to the strength of the coffee, I would have imagined that it was super-caffeinated, but it is not.  Chicory is much cheaper than coffee and has a similar taste.  If you've ever been to Cafe du Monde and had a nice cup of Cafe au Lait (Chicory coffee with hot milk), you know exactly what I'm talking about.  A cup of Cafe au Lait and an order of beignets is a nice way to start off your morning (or end your day) and is hard to beat. 

So, we'll continue to enjoy these blooms in the garden from the endive (chicory) plant, but it gives me an idea for something new to try as well.

After the blooms of the endive have faded, I'm going to try my hand at making coffee from our own chicory plant.  The chicory plant has a long tap root.  All you have to do is pull up the root, wash it, dry it, roast it in the oven, and then cut it up very fine and steep in water.  We'll be sure to show you that process when we do it.

Maybe the salad greens aren't a favorite at our house, but the flowers of the endive are pretty and we might have found a way to actually enjoy the chicory in our mesclun mix by drinking it in our morning coffee.