Virtual travel - Discovering chicory and fava

Discovering Chicory and Fava

Virtual travelling during the pandemic, I kept making lists of what to see and what to do and what to taste on the next real trip. Researching Puglia, looking at various top 10 suggestions, what caught my attention was  ‘chicory and fava.’ A puree of fava beans soaked overnight and chicory leaves. It sounded wholesome and comforting but I had never heard of chicory leaves being eaten before.

Chicory! My association with chicory is it's presence in coffee and endless debates about whether coffee is better with it or without it. My grandmother, dressed in her voile saree, sipping from a steaming cup of coffee, standing under the arched doorway that separated the dining room from the kitchen and strongly advocating chicory in coffee in her warm, cultured Maharashtrian manner. Grandmother refused to have coffee that did not contain chicory as according to her it was the chicory that brought out the flavours  of coffee.  The way she said it chi- ko- ree in her very Maharashtrian  accent, I always thought of chicory as being Maharashtrian.  But here it was challenging my thinking! A delicacy in Puglia! 

So  what would you do if you came across this dish! You would ask these questions of people who were around you. Since, we are armchair rambling in the lock down I googled up chicory. It has the nicest blue flowers and so I wanted the plant in my little balcony. The nursey online that delivers to our locality says it is out of stock. So we have to wait to get a plant for now! Though prolific in nature, chicory seems to evoke very strong emotions!

This speaks so much about chicory –

Called “ragged sailors” for their faded navy dress,
their seeds and plants sailed the Atlantic with fellow
colonists and set deep roots across the continent.
Shadowing humanity, they thrive on highway
medians and in abandoned lots, and dare to push
through pavement cracks where little else grows.

(https://davidkleff.typepad.com/home/2011/07/)

Echoed in John Updike’s poem – Chicory 

How good of it to risk the roadside fumes,
the oil-soaked heat reflected from asphalt,
and wretched earth dun-colored like cement,
too packed for any other seed to probe.

(https://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php%3Fdate=2011%252F03%252F29.html)

And so egged on by curiosity I tried to search Indian recipes that contained chicory. Did it ever leave the coffee and stand by itself? But I’m still looking for any mention in Maharashtrian dishes in particular. So will keep looking!

And here's something to takeone's mind off  chicory adding flavours to Grandma’s coffee. 

Imagine it evoking these feelings – as in David Leff’s Chicory -

I fantasize the color of my lover’s
beckoning eyes and long for the look that urges me
closer.