The Delicious Ugly Ducklings of the Endive Family

02/23/2012
The Delicious Ugly Ducklings of the Endive Family

They don't have the ferny, curly leaves of fashionable frisée.  Nor are they dappled with rose pink or washed with lustrous carmine like many of the Italian winter chicories.  And in contrast to fragile, tiny mesclun leaves, these salads are practically gigantic and longer-keeping than almost any other green. Yet they must be lacking in sex appeal, because even I, who grow everything, had failed to give them a place in my garden.   In fact, in English, these plants don't even have a real name to call their own.  The few seed catalogues who carry them just list them as "escarole."  Yet they don't resemble the escarole of supermarket produce sections.

That's why I'm going to call them "cornets," borrowing from their French moniker, escaroles en cornet.  Botanically, the cornets belong to Chicorium intybus, the species that includes wild blue-flowered chicory (itself edible), as well as its innumerable botanic variations including all the Italian chicories, all curly endives, as well as the blanched cylinders of Witloof-type endive you buy in the supermarket.  (You'd scarcely recognize this plant as it grows in the garden from its forced counterpart.)  Cornets, by the way, are never found in the supermarket.

Cornets are huge salad plants, consisting of wide, undulating rosettes of outer leaves which, at maturity, enclose a dense cone of self-blanching and utterly sweet and succulent, overlapping leaves at their center.  The first time I saw this plant was nearly 10 years ago.  I was visiting the more obscure parts of the King's Potager (Le Potager du Roi) at Versailles.  A gardener had just harvested a cornet.  He had had hacked off its exterior leaves and was holding aloft a huge cone of pale leaves resembling a pale Chinese cabbage.  I recognized it for a cornet, but at that point, I suffered from the same indifference toward this plant as most gardeners who have never grown or tasted it.  That was at the height of the 'baby lettuce' craze.  How good could such a huge salad be?  I shrugged it off and forgot about it.

But just last year, casting around for novelties, I finally gave cornets a try.  Plus, I had decided to offer the seeds for sale on this website, and I always trial everything I sell.  In late June, I planted the seed as I would that of lettuce, barely covering it.  A thick forest of seedlings quickly emerged.  Lesson:  Cornet escaroles are extremely robust germinators so sow thinly.

The plants grew rapidly and I admit I didn't thin them as I should have.  Cornets need at least 15-18 inches in every direction to fully develop.  Unlike lettuces, they are highly resistant to bolting.  As they are such large plants, they take a good three months to reach maturity.  And while you can eat them at younger stages, to taste cornets in all their glory, you need to wait until the furled head is developed.  Cornets, like all the chicory-endive-escarole tribe, are also much cold-hardier than lettuces.  That's why I planted in them in late June to harvest as a fall and winter crop.

Alright, let's cut to the punch:  the salad bowl!  Let's just say I was stunned at how delicious the thick, buttery yellow leaves of cornet escaroles are.  They have that special toothsomely thick crunch of Italian endives, with a sweeter flavor.  The cornets quickly became one of our favorite fall salads, alone or mixed with other colorful endives and a handful of roquette.  Cornets convinced even Denis, the reticent salad eater (compared to me), that winter salads are actually the best of the year.  On first taste, I instantly regretted having ignored these plants for so long.

Harvest cornets by cutting through the root at ground level.  Then remove any damaged leaves and if you don't care for a slightly bitter taste, most of the vibrant green, exterior ones as well.  (These are excellent braised as a cooked green.)  You'll be left with a heavy, buttery yellow cone of leaves, which may be tightly furled or loose and wavy, depending on the variety  One mature cornet will provide at least 3 large salads for 4 persons.

Cornets are definitely heritage vegetables, and as their commercial production approaches zero, no one seems to have bred any new varieties since the 19th century.  Perhaps the oldest variety is 'Pain de Sucre' ('Sugarloaf), which forms enormous solid cones.  'Cornet d'Anjou' and 'Cornet de Bordeaux' have looser, wavier interior foliage that flares into a veritable cornet.

So, if you love the tangy flavor and fleshy crunch of the diverse Italian chicories, heed my word to the wise.  Don't let 2012 go by without making way for the ugly duckling of the endive tribe.  Late next fall, when your watery lettuces have long succumbed to frost, the lusty cornets will still be filling your salad bowl with their sumptuous leaves!

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Products of Interest:
Escarole 'Cornet d'Anjou'
Cornet escarole 'Pain de Sucre'