Where would the coffee of France and New Orleans be without its chicory? For it is the mixture of the roasted chicory root with the coffee bean that yields the distinctive brew of these areas. (Purist coffee lovers might call this adulteration rather than mixture).
Chicory is a wild plant that is often brought under cultivation (more in Europe than in the United States); its delicate blue flowers close at night and then open again with clocklike regularity in the morning hours. The plant shares many of the medicinal and culinary uses of its relative the dandelion. Its tasty bitter leaves act as a stimulant to the appetite and digestion and can be eaten raw in salad or cooked as a vegetable. The leaves can also be chopped and brewed as a tea that is useful for liver ailments, gout, and rheumatism. The chicory root, ground and roasted, is used as a coffee substitute, and when combined with coffee is said to counteract its stimulating effects.
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