Belgian Endive

There was a year in my childhood when I ate only macaroni and cheese or hot dogs. My parents, though not happy about this development, indulged, as otherwise I would have continued to look like a starving child from one of those tv ads with Sally Struthers. Maybe not so drastic as those children, but I was told more than once that I was all bones.

My eating habits continued to be peculiar. When I was fifteen, my dad gave me a rather uncomfortable lecture about how no boys would want to date me if I didn’t learn to eat hamburgers.

I will never be a vegetarian.

My year in Belgium transformed my palate and I learned to like almost everything. Vegetables, meats we don’t have too often here, such as rabbit, potatoes cooked every way imaginable. There were only three foods the Belgians couldn’t convert me to: endive, blood sausage, and mayonnaise. It seemed appropriate to begin with the food that has yet to win me over, despite all its trendiness….the evil endive, otherwise known in Dutch as witloof (white leaf).

Let’s trace the trend, shall we? Is there anyone who remembers eating endive ten years ago? Maybe well-to-do folks who were older than my parents. Endive still has not caught on in the U.S. the way it has in Belgium, where it is more of a way of life. As the Belgian Endive Board would have us believe, “It isn’t any one thing. It’s everything.” (Incidentally, this site induces guilt in me; it is so convincing it has me wondering what it is I have against endive. Then I remember the bitterness). It is cooked many different ways; my host mother was certain I would grow to love one of them. The most convincing, the clincher, the recipe sure to convert the majority, is endive with ham au gratin. Impossible to fail. Smother anything in ham and cheese sauce, and Emily is bound to like it. Anything, apparently, except for endive. In the midst of gooey cheese and the lovely smokiness of ham lurks the eternal bitterness of the endive.

I never recall having seen an endive for sale in an American supermarket before going to Belgium in 1998. When I returned, it seemed they were everywhere. Okay, perhaps a slight exaggeration. They were present. Now, they’re everywhere: preening at the supermarket, weaseling into the appetizers at my company’s tropical-themed summer party, lounging under ceviche. Endive even has its own entry on Wikipedia. In other words, it is a celebrity.

Let’s get to the root of Belgian endive. There, we find chicory. I only learned about the connection recently. It seems to work so: the roots are chicory (also used to make famous New Orleans-style coffee). Witloof/endive is grown by forcing the plant to grow in darkness or underground. The absence of sunlight is what makes the leaves white. If left to grow on its own, it will develop curly green leaves, used as a salad green in the southern U.S. Witloof even needs to be shipped in darkness; any exposure to light will cause the leaves to turn green. If you have not seen endive, it does have the appearance of a vegetable that Bunnicula got a hold of.

When did the trendiness start? It turns out I’m not insane, at least not on this front. The SF Chronicle declared endive the new Cinderella of the vegetable world in 1999. According to Mollie Katzen, you can create your own little bistro at home by making endive (perhaps you can even romance a certain type of person by preparing endive?) The Food Network is certainly fond of the vegetable; 37 recipes show up. Maybe I haven’t had endive every way that one can. If anyone has a recipe that you’re sure I haven’t had, please go ahead and try to convert me. I’d hate to be a foodie hipster, hating an innocent vegetable only because it’s become popular with the masses.