Tag belgian vegetables

What is endive? It is a leafy vegetable from the chicory genus, Cichorium, and the word covers more than one plant. In most American grocery stores, “endive” means Belgian endive: a tight, torpedo-shaped head of pale, cream-and-yellow leaves, sold in small packs near the radicchio. Belgians call it witloof (Dutch for “white leaf”) or chicon (in French-speaking Wallonia), and it has been a winter staple in Belgian kitchens since the 19th century.

The same word is also used for curly endive (frisée) and escarole, which are leafier, greener cousins grown in the open field. They taste related, but they look and cook differently.

All of them are bitter to some degree, and that bitterness is the point. It comes from natural plant compounds that chicory family members produce, and in Belgian endive it is softened by the unusual way the vegetable is grown: in complete darkness.

What is endive? Three plants share the name

The naming is genuinely confusing, because two different species share one common name, and different countries use the words in opposite ways. In the UK, for example, Belgian endive is usually sold as “chicory,” while in France it is simply endive.

The University of Florida’s gardening extension notes on endive put it plainly: curly endive is frisée, broad-leafed endive is escarole, and Belgian endive “is technically a different species.” That species is chicory, the same plant whose roasted roots have long been used as a coffee substitute and whose red-leaved forms give us radicchio.

For the rest of this article, “endive” mostly means the Belgian kind, since that is the one with a Belgian story behind it.

How Belgian endive is grown in the dark

Belgian endive is a two-stage crop, and the second stage is what makes it unique.

1. Field stage. Chicory seed is sown in late spring. Over summer the plant grows a rosette of green leaves above ground and a thick taproot below.
2. Harvesting the roots. In autumn the leaves are cut off and the roots are dug up. Many growers keep them in cold storage so they can be forced in batches through the year.
3. Forcing. The roots are replanted upright and kept warm, moist, and completely dark. Over roughly three to four weeks, each root pushes out a new, compact head of leaves.
4. Harvest and packing. The heads are snapped off the root and packed quickly, often wrapped in paper to keep light away.

Growing without light is called etiolation. With no sun, the plant cannot build up chlorophyll, so the leaves stay white with yellow tips instead of turning green. The traditional Belgian method covered the roots with a layer of soil during forcing. Most commercial endive today is forced hydroponically, with the roots standing in trays of circulating water, a method that spread widely from around the 1970s. Some Belgian cooks still seek out soil-forced witloof, which many feel has a more authentic flavor.

A short history: from Brussels cellars to Paris markets

Belgian endive is a 19th-century Brussels invention, and its origin story comes in two versions.

The popular one is a legend: around 1830, a farmer in the Josaphat valley in Schaerbeek, on the edge of Brussels, supposedly stored chicory roots in a dark cellar (in some tellings, to hide his harvest during the turmoil of the Belgian Revolution) and later found them sprouting pale, tender leaves. It is a charming story, but historians generally treat it as a myth.

The better-documented account points to Franciscus (Frans) Bresiers, head gardener at the Botanical Garden of Brussels, who is credited with working out and systematizing the forcing of chicory roots in the dark. Sources disagree on the exact decade, placing his work anywhere from the late 1820s to around 1850, so treat any single precise date with caution. Forcing vegetables in the dark was not a new idea in Europe, but applying it to chicory roots and turning the result into a crop was a Brussels development.

For a couple of decades the technique stayed mostly around Brussels. In 1873, witloof was shown at the international horticultural exhibition in Ghent, which brought it to wider attention, including among French horticulturists. By the end of the 1870s it was being sold at Les Halles, the central market in Paris, under the name “Brussels endive,” which is one reason the French still call it simply endive today.

Why endive tastes bitter

The bitterness comes from compounds the chicory plant makes naturally, mainly two sesquiterpene lactones called lactucin and lactucopicrin. Lactucopicrin is also known as intybin, a name taken from intybus, chicory’s species name. These substances are found in chicory and in related plants such as wild lettuce and dandelion. Wikipedia’s chicory entry is a useful starting point if you want to read about the plant’s chemistry and history in more depth.

Several things decide how bitter a given head of endive will taste:

• Light. Darkness is the main reason Belgian endive is milder than frisée or field-grown chicory. The whiter the leaves, the gentler the flavor. Heads left under shop lights for days can start to green at the tips, and the green parts taste sharper. This is why endive is often sold wrapped in blue paper.
• Position in the head. The dense, solid base where the leaves attach to the root is the most bitter part. Many recipes tell you to cut a small cone out of the bottom for this reason.
• Variety. Older endive varieties were noticeably more bitter. Modern breeding has toned down the bitterness considerably, which pleases many shoppers and disappoints some traditionalists.
• Species. Frisée is grown in the open and usually tastes sharper than Belgian endive. Escarole is the softest of the field-grown endives.

Bitterness is not a flaw here. In Belgian cooking it is valued as a counterweight to rich ingredients, and the vegetable’s whole appeal is that mix of crunch, juiciness, and a clean bitter finish.

What endive tastes like, and how it’s eaten

Raw Belgian endive is crisp and watery, closer to romaine heart than to spinach, with a faint nutty sweetness up front and the bitterness arriving at the end. Cooking changes it: heat softens the leaves, brings out sweetness, and rounds off the bitter edge.

Common ways to eat it:

• Raw, as leaves. The boat-shaped leaves work as scoops for dips or small toppings.
• Raw, sliced. Cut crosswise into rings and dressed, it makes a crunchy winter salad. Sweet and fatty partners such as apple, pear, walnuts, and blue cheese balance it well.
• Braised. Cooked gently with butter, it turns soft and golden. Many cooks add a pinch of sugar to soften the bitterness further.
• Chicons au gratin. The best-known Belgian endive dish: braised heads wrapped in ham, covered with béchamel and grated cheese, and baked until bubbling. It is a classic in Belgium, northern France, and the Netherlands, often served with frites and a salad.

How to choose and store Belgian endive

• Look for firm, tightly closed heads with white bodies and pale yellow tips.
• Avoid heads with green tips, brown edges, or limp outer leaves, since these signal light exposure or age.
• Store endive in the fridge, wrapped in paper or kept in its original packaging, away from light.
• Rinse it just before use rather than soaking it, and trim the base right before serving, since cut surfaces brown quickly.

So, what is endive? In most shops, it is a pale chicory shoot grown in the dark from a replanted root, a technique worked out in 19th-century Brussels. Its bitterness is natural, varies with light, variety, and which part of the head you eat, and is exactly what makes it pair so well with butter, ham, and cheese.