Chic Chicories Taught Us to See Salad Through Rose-Colored Glasses

The off-season can be bleak for fresh vegetable lovers. There are only so many ways we can retool a cauliflower or rutabaga before we’re desperate for some color. Even collards and kale can lose their luster after a few months. That’s where chicories come in. 

Radicchio, escarole, frisée, and endive are all technically chicories—in fact, they’re all the same species. Humans have long tinkered with plant genomes, bending weeds to our will through selective breeding. Lettuce—another member of the chicory tribe—is a notable example, no longer weeping bitter white sap when cut; other chicories have been altered through generations of selection for larger leaves, less bitterness, and lovelier color.

Chicories were first grown in ancient Egypt, and didn’t take long to spread to Rome, where they’ve been grown in earnest for millennia. Until recently, chicories besides frisée or the occasional treviso weren’t exactly easy to come by outside Italy, but you no longer have to trek to Veneto to know a radicchio grower. You have Lane Selman to thank for that.

In North America, chicories have no bigger cheerleader than Selman, a Professor of Practice at Oregon State University and co-founder of the Culinary Breeding Network—a partnership between plant breeders, farmers, and chefs for trialing new varieties of vegetables, as well as identifying heirloom varieties that may be suited to the Pacific Northwest’s cooler climate. 

Creating consumer demand for bitterness isn’t always easy, but chicories have one undeniable characteristic working in their favor: they’re really cool-looking.  

“Radicchio is strikingly beautiful and unique in appearance,” Selman says. “The world is so visual nowadays with social media, and people choose first with their eyes.” She points out that chicories’ novelty (to Americans) means the plant practically markets itself, but that hasn’t stopped her from producing annual events like Chicory Week and the Sagra del Radicchio. But her real motivation in promoting these oft-overlooked winter vegetables isn’t Instagram engagement—it’s to give Northwest farmers something besides root vegetables to grow during the cold and rainy off-season. 

Farmers have appreciated this effort, not just because it offers a little financial windfall during the off-season, but because for some, radicchio represents a cultural connection to the foods they grow. Jason Salvo, owner of 15-acre Local Roots Farm located outside Seattle, writes in the Radicchio Zine (produced for Culinary Breeding Network’s Chicory Week), that “[i]n America, we have lost many of the regional food traditions that Italy is known for. There’s something especially profound about a vegetable or a recipe or a tradition that has been passed down for generations, especially those that are connected to a particular place. In many ways, our love of radicchio comes from our increasing disconnect from our own cultural traditions.”

Growing in shades of jewel-toned garnet, Millennial-pink, and absinthe freckled with a claret mist, it’s time to rethink winter “greens.” Thanks to the multidisciplinary efforts of plant breeders, farmers, chefs, and one very ardent vegetable lover, the moment has never been more right.