Chicory is a botanical category covering a great variety of plants and leafy greens that range from Belgian endive to radicchio to sugarloaf. Many will think of “chicory” as just one representative, the classic long, serrated leaf vegetable that looks like this:
Chicory is native to many areas but has a long recorded history of appreciation in Lazio. As a physician, Galen spoke favorably of its healthful properties; bitterness in itself was associated with medicinal detoxification. More romantically, Horace prided himself on its inclusion in his simple, frugal diet alongside olives and mallow. A true salt-of-the-earth Roman.
The wild chicory trade was so integral to Roman cuisine that chicory foragers had a specific name just for them: cicoriari. According to historical accounts, these laborers were by and large urban dwellers, mostly men and boys of all ages who ventured into the fields outside the city limits to carry out their task. The landowners saw them as menacing trespassers, pillaging and poaching on private property. It was not just trodding across the land that tried the patience of the landowners, but the pits left from digging and prodding with hoes and long knives. Overseers were ordered to keep a vigilant eye out and run them off the land. Foragers knew for the most part who they could count on to turn a blind eye, but on occasion violent skirmishes would break out, and in one known case a man was even killed.
After a day’s toil, the harvest was taken to women in town who would clean the greens and haul them to market in baskets the next day to sell them at their peak.
Despite the fatiguing labor involved in foraging for chicory as well as the potential danger, it seems the return was worth it. Often, people who had come to Rome as field hands would abandon that work and make a living as a cicoriari, such was the demand for chicory.
Puntarelle
Within the species cichorium intybus var. foliosum is a varietal formally called cicoria di catalogna frastagliata di Gaeta, and commonly known as puntarelle. While chicory in various forms is popular across Lazio, the raw salad made from puntarelle is more affectively associated with the delights of Roman gastronomy per se. Indeed, it has been officially registered as a traditional agricultural product of the area.
Puntarelle are also referred to as cicoria asparago, or chicory asparagus due to the appearance of the bulb of spears that forms as the inner core of the plant. In preparing the classic Roman salad, the tough outer leaves are removed to expose this inner core. These can be cooked separately and finished by tossing in garlic and oil.
Whole puntarelle heads with the outer leaves intact.
The inner core of spears. Separate each spear and discard the hard innermost core.
Wash the stalks and leave to soak to crisp them up for shredding.
This is one model of the tool used to julienne the spears.
Push the spears through the shredder and soak in a vat of cold water with lemon juice for about an hour or until they take on the characteristic curl.
Puntarelle ‘mondate’: ready to make into a salad.
Puntarelle dressing
Most recipes for this dish in the classic Roman cookbooks don’t bother explaining dosages. They simply say to make a sauce by pulverizing garlic with good anchovies and add enough oil, vinegar and pepper to make a thick emulsion.
One important recommendation is to leave the salad sit for half hour to an hour in the refrigerator so that the chicory can mingle with the sauce, but don’t let it go on too long or the salt of the anchovies will adversely affect the crispiness of the vegetable.
Puntarelle dressed and served.
In conversation with my friends Gillian Riley and Robin Weir, we pondered over our love of puntarelle. The vegetable itself is pleasant enough, crisp and mildly bitter, but the combination of those two elements with the assertiveness of the sauce so distinctly speaks of Rome and its take-no-prisoners flavors. Robin tells me that he can find puntarelle at his greengrocer in London now but, in a pinch, he substitutes celery shreds, which he claims will also curl up when left in cold lemon water.