HERBS DESCRIPTIONS: CHICORY
Cichorium intybus COMPOSITAE
Strictly speaking, chicory is a pot-herb, almost a vegetable, but I have included it here because of its wonderful store of vitamins and minerals, and that liver- and gall-regulating substance, choline. It is very rich in calcium, copper and iron. It is such an easy trouble-free plant to grow, decorative if grown for its flowers in the herbaceous beds, useful as a winter vegetable if cooked, and a source of many essential body needs when eaten raw in a salad.
The variety known as Belgian or Brussels Chicory is the herb used very extensively in Europe. It is even grown as a rich fodder-crop for cattle in some parts of France and northern Italy. It grows rapidly, is a perennial, and is a very nutritive diet addition for man or beast.
Some people have probably heard of chicory only in “coffee and chicory”; and you may think, as I once did, that it is a cheap adulterant to add to coffee essence to bring down its price. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The canny French learnt from the Italians and Greeks, who learnt from the Asiatics: that heavy coffee drinking can have a very bad effect on the liver. So what more simple to those wise early “nutritionists” than to add a substance that helped the liver and gall action of the body—chicory. The roots are the parts used for the beverage, being roasted and ground at the end of the growing season, and either added to coffee or used instead of it, to make a very palatable drink.
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Tags: Herbal