Produce of the Week - A Bit Bitter
sponsored by Coleman Farms

Of the five basic flavors (sweet, sour, salt, bitter, umame {'gravy'}) bitter seems to get the least respect, amounting to neglect; but today we'll talk bitter, the distinctive flavor attribute of the endives or chicories. Don't picture Belgian endive, though. You're not so likely to find its blanched tight heads in local Farmers' Markets, but the endive/chicory group is a large one; you're likely to find half a dozen or more members, colorful and loose leafed to varying degrees, hanging about farmers' stalls. The chicories thrive in cool damp weather, so now they're at their peak of flavor and prettiness, since cold brings out their latent red coloring.

Radicchio is probably the best known of the chicories. In cold weather it presents as a tight cabbagelike head having burgandy colored leaves with white veins. The leaves are thin and delicate, so, shredded, it's often used in mixed salads as a source of color and a slight bitter highlight. There is a suite of heading chicories, Castelfranco and Treviso, for example, which differ from Radicchio in the tightness of the head, and in shape, these others tending towards elongated heads similar in structure to Romaine lettuce. There are also non-heading chicories. The most commonly grown of these looks just like Dandelion, and is nutritionally interchangeable with it (chicories generally are particularly good sources or iron), though the plants are not closely related. This comes in both a 'white' and a 'red' variety, differing chiefly in the color of the central vein or stalk. Worth looking for is Spadona, a loose variety with broad leaves which are a bit fleshier than the 'dandelion' varieties, and useful in other ways. Finally, there are the two outliers, Frisée and Escarole. These present like lettuce, Frisée being, well, frizzy and loose headed, while Escarole is built more like Romaine; in fact, it is sometimes taken as Romaine while Frisée looks so much like a particular lettuce, that we had difficulty selling the lettuce. These two chicories are really cultivars of the same plant, and if you look around, you'll see maybe half a dozen different offerings fairly smoothly covering the range from classic frizzy to romainelike tightness and large leaves.

As our first linked page says, the chicories are popular salad greens in Europe, and there was a recent recipe in the Chronicle for Spanish Salad which combines Radicchio and Frisée, as the 'greens', complementing them with chunks of orange, fennel, cheese, nuts and a garlicky vinaigrette. This will come as something of a surprise to the diner engusting something like Butter lettuce with ranch dressing, but it's worth trying. The bitterness of the greens and the sweetness of the orange highlight each other, and together act as a sort of palate cleanser, so you get a burst of intense flavors without a lot of lingering. It's just the thing to turn a piece of perhaps not overly fresh bread and maybe a few olives and a glass of something into a meal both nutritionally and gustatorily complete. There are all sorts of variations possible - switching in some of the other chicories - Escarole, particularly, but chopped 'dandelion' or Spadona will also work - adding some lettuce, or apple or pear, if you can still find them, or using other nuts, say wal or hazel.

All the chicories respond well to cooking, anything from being added to a soup at the finish, so, barely warmed through, to, in the case of the heading ones, marination followed by grilling. Either in soups or steamed, the 'dandelions' and Escarole go very well with beans such as borlotti or pinto; and they mix well with other greens, such as the winter leaves - the kales and broccoli greens - discussed in the previous column. They're also good in a 'warm salad', either lightly braised or blanched and served with chunks of boiled potato, dressed with oil, garlic and perhaps shredded cheese, and crushed black peppercorns. We've touched on much of this in earlier columns, which you can pull up by using ed's 'search box', if more particular cooking ideas are in order. Finally, let's not forget the sandwich. The slightly bitter, more or less crunchy chicory (Spadona, if you can find it, or Escarole) leaf is a good addition to a sandwich, either in addition to or replacing lettuce. The flavor will set off ordinary (cheddaroid) or extraordinary (chèvre) cheeses and is a good foil for peanut butter (unsweetened, unhomogenized).