Mollie Katzen Online

An Exclusive to MollieKatzen.Com

Dear Friends,

This month we have a guest here on the Kitchen Table Gazette: Andy Griffin, who, along with his wife Julia, farms delicious organic produce in Watsonville, California. Andy is a terrific writer as well as a dedicated farmer. I'm pleased he has permitted me to share his vision with you.

Yours In health,
Mollie

By Andy Griffin
Mariquita Farm
Organically Grown Vegetables, Berries and Herbs
P.O. Box 2065 Watsonville, CA 95077
(831)761-3226
www.mariquita.com

STRAIGHT OUTTA ITALIA

I hope that Joe, the King of radicchio, smiles as much reading this tale as I have in remembering it. I don't want to offend the Prince of radicchio, either. I, too, grow radicchio and I wouldn't want my candor or imagination getting in the way of doing business with either of these gentlemen again. But it's fall in the northern hemisphere, the local radicchio harvest is in full swing, and this story is in season again.

Radicchio di Verona
photo by Andy Griffin

Radicchio is a lot more well known in its Italian homeland than it is here. For those of you not in the know, radicchio is a chicory, Cichorium intybus, to be exact. Chicories are members of the Compositae, the same plant family that has lent us the lettuce and the artichoke. Like its better known cousins the radicchio can be unpleasantly bitter if it is stressed by heat or drought during cultivation, yet it possess a bracing bitter-sweetness when well grown. Good quality radicchio can be grown during the summer along California's foggy central coast but Autumn, with its shorter days and cooler nights, stimulates radicchio to achieve it's perfection.

The uninitiated consumer may confuse radicchio with red cabbage because the most common variety available here in the U.S. has a round, red head. Italy boasts radicchios in many shapes and in every color of its national flag; open faced green rosettes of Grummulo radicchio and white, Romaine shaped heads of Pan de Zucchero radicchio compete for shelf space with the red type we are familiar with. The round, red radicchio is Chioggia radicchio, named after the Italian town of Chioggia where its consumption was popularized. It seems as half the towns in northern Italy have their own distinct radicchios. Castelfranco has a round, variegated radicchio, Treviso has a tightly wrapped and pointed radicchio, and Verona has a small, loose leaved radicchio. But for most Americans there is only one radicchio, commonly found chopped into the now ubiquitous "spring-mix" salads available year round in every supermarket. And for a lot of people radicchio is the still the "bitter red stuff" they sweep out of the salad to the edge of their plate.

In Europe radicchio has always been enjoyed cooked; grilled, perhaps, until soft, and served as a side dish, or baked in olive oil and garnished with just a pinch of sea salt and a twist of black pepper. Radicchio can be eaten raw, as well. In the classic farm house mesclun salads of Provence some variety of chicory (in moderation) was always a possible seasonal ingredient, valued for the mildly bitter contrast they provided to sweeter lettuces. Today Chioggia radicchio is an absolutely essential element of premixed factory salads; the bright red color of the torn leaves sets off mixed greens to their advantage, even when viewed days later through the film of a plastic bag. Better yet, radicchio is cheaper weight for the farmer to produce than baby lettuces. Radicchio has the advantage over baby greens of storing well, so temporary surpluses can be warehoused for use by the salad mixing plant at a later date. Baby greens have the ugly habit of growing past their infancy practically overnight if a heat wave distorts a farm's harvest schedule.

One man more than any is responsible for America's familiarity with Chioggia radicchio. Joe, the King of radicchio. Joe knows food, especially Italian food, and he was the first grower to recognize the marketing potential posed by America's absolute ignorance of radicchio. Sure, Italian Americans, like Joe, ate radicchio from birth but its consumption was ghettoized into "ethnic" neighborhoods. Joe, with his hearty, outgoing manner and his skills as a farmer brought a missionary's zeal to the production and sale of radicchio. Joe understood the colorful spectrum of radicchio varieties and their many uses in the kitchen but he also knew that diversity and complexity is a hard sell in the States. It's easier to make money by dumbing any concept down to a few iconic, easily communicated sweet bytes.

Radicchio di Treviso
photo by Andy Griffin

So Joe grew round, red, Chiogga radicchio. Lots of it. And he shipped it all over the country with an image of his face printed on the side of every box. Joe also developed his own varieties of red, round radicchio that were especially adapted to North American growing conditions. Joe's smart, and he's a great farmer. He's also lucky. The growth of his company coincided with America's love affair with cheap, convenient salads that employ chopped radicchio. Joe got rich. Like a lot of us would if we got rich Joe decided to have his own restaurant where he could hang out and entertain clients. Obviously, Joe's restaurant is an Italian joint and radicchio is on the menu.

Enter Dick. Chioggia radicchio doesn't head up well in the spring; the increasing day length prompts the plant to go to flower prematurely and the developing head is torn open by the emerging seed stalk. Joe couldn't grow all the radicchio for the market he was creating so he sought out relationships with farmers in other growing regions; Mexican farmers for winter harvests, Chilean farmers for the winter plantings (winter is Chile's summer), and coastal Californian growers for the summer harvest window when it was too hot on Joe's Central Valley farms. My friend Dick was contracted to grow radicchio, thousands of acres of radicchio. Since Dick is a very professional grower the harvests went well.

Joe and Dick are a study in contrasts. Joe's business takes him around the world to Santiago, Chile, to Chioggia in Italy, to Irapuato in Mexico. Dick is the consummate home boy. His business takes him to fields in Watsonville, Hollister, Huron, and Yuma. Joe goes to the Veneto, Dick takes his family to Disneyland. Joe pops up in eateries like San Francisco's Incanto and scans their Italian wine list with a critical eye. Dick barrels down the highway in his Dodge pick-up sucking down gallons of orange crush. The two share a native talent for the business deal, but even there they differ. Joe's a big picture guy. Dick counts zeros. He keeps a calculator glued to his steering wheel and if a price is mentioned Dick pecks it in and sums it up or subtracts it from his profits. Joe seems confident that he knows everything. Dick puts on an aw -shucks country boy act that has him always asking questions and never understanding much. Don't be fooled. Dick combines a squint-eyed peasant's well grounded skepticism with the soul of a river boat gambler.

So one day Joe realizes that Dick has cultivated thousands of acres of radicchio and he's never even eaten it. Well, ok, he bit a leaf in the field and it was bitter. Nothing new there; Dick grows vegetables; he doesn't eat them. Tri tip barbeque is more his style. As some one who has shared his barbeque I can say he does a great job. But Joe's missionary zeal was piqued and his Latin sense of hospitality was aroused. He insisted that Dick come to restaurant. "You taste how my chef prepares radicchio, you're gonna love it. He's the best! Straight outta Italia! Ya gotta come. Bring the whole family."

So Dick went and he brought the whole family. He brought his wife, his kids, his brother who runs his land leveling company, his mother who does his farm's books, his sister who manages the farm's day to day affairs, and another other brother who runs his irrigation supply company. They ate. The food was good, even the radicchio. At length Dick pushed himself away from the table and asked Joe to be introduced to the chef so as to offer his compliments. The two men threaded their way through the tables back to the brightly lit kitchen.

There's the chef, sweating over the grill and looking up at the incoming orders. He's a short fellow, even in his tall toque, and his broad, shining face is the color of potter's clay. His features, contrasted vividly against a cook's white uniform, are those of a Tarascan Indian. He turns as Joe and Dick enter the kitchen and barks out orders to the staff in Spanish.

"Straight outta Italia?" Dick asks with a grin.

"Hey, I never lie," Joe retorts. "Italia is a town in Mexico."

I told this story to Manny as we harvested radicchio di Treviso together the other day. Manny's from Michoacan. He grinned too. "Nueva Italia is in Michoacan along route 37, south of Lombardia, west of Apatzingan, and just north of Infiernillo."

Joe never lies. Some of the best Italian cooks today are straight outta Italia...y Lombardia y Apatzingan y El Infiernillo.

Copyright 2004 Andy Griffin

What we're bringing from the field to the farmers' market this weekend:

Lots of different peppers; pimientos, jalapenos, bells in three colors, anaheims, gypsies, bullhorns, and more bells, plus radicchio di Treviso, escarole, and chantenay carrots in red and yellow decorator colors. Also we're bringing Florentine fennel, sorrel, and red and golden beets. We will bring our first bunches of lacinato kale, plus loads of golden turnips and loose rapini tips. A veritable cornucopia is waiting to get picked and sent to market.