Friday, April 27, 2007

Chicory in hiding



The Great Big Vegetable Challenge had to take a snack break last night with vegetable crisps - delicious,fried, salty slices of beetroot, parsnip and carrot. For Freddie, the notion that these might be vegetables didn't even enter his mind. Serving him crisps isn't something I am proud of but it really isn't all my fault. I tried to find chicory but clearly it is in hiding in West London. At the first supermarket, I spent 20 minutes playing hunt the chicory, scanning the shelves for their albino white leaves. I asked the shop assistant who said back, "Chicky? What's that then?" And he pointed over at the meat counter. Then followed an embarassing episode in which I attempted to spell the word chicory out loud to the poor man, watched by a small crowd of shoppers who clearly thought I was on day release.
So I left and in the next supermarket asked the same question; only to be quizzed by the store manager, "Is that produce then?" In the third and final store, a rather doleful manager told me he had asked Head Office three times to stock it but the promised leaves had never arrived. Conspiracy theories have been started on subjects of lesser importance than this.
So I gave up for the day and bought vegetable crisps instead. Tomorrow we will try again. Meanwhile, if you have any good recipes for the elusive chicory send them our way.

13 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:42 PM

    Hi
    We love this one for CXhicory Salad:
    Mix both a diced red & green apple, with half sqeezed orange juice, 4oz black, skinned, seeded grapes, 2oz chopped walnuts & 1 chicon sliced into rings. Add blue cheese dressing to taste

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous11:11 PM

    Chicory is well known here in Belgium .
    The easiest way to taste it is to eat it raw cut up into very small bits . What I do is to cut it into four long ways and then to cut it up into very thin slices. Add this to various salades and it is great. I find that it is very fresh and crunchy.

    Another way is to cut off the end , remove the outward leaves and to cook it in a bit of oil and butter. Not too hot if not it burns , but if you brown it a bit at the beginning and then reduce the heat you have a nice nutty taste .

    hope this helps

    Good luck !

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous7:26 AM

    David - thank you - is it known as endive in Belgium?
    GBVC

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