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Barbe De Capucins
Select three bunches white, fresh, crisp, clear barbe de capucins, thoroughly clean, carefully wipe, but do not wash in water. Cut in two-inch strips, place in salad bowl, season with four tablespoons dressing, mix well and serve.
A one-line salad that depends entirely on sourcing and on dressing at the last second. The whole method is: find the right chicory, keep it dry, cut, dress, serve.
- What barbe de capucin isBlanched chicory — chicory roots forced in the dark so they throw pale, slender, slightly bitter shoots. The name is French for "Capuchin's beard." It is sold in winter in France and is uncommon elsewhere.
- SubstitutesBelgian endive is the same plant forced into tight heads and is the closest supermarket stand-in; separate the leaves and cut them into two-inch lengths. Puntarelle, frisée hearts or pale dandelion crowns all work, all a shade more bitter.
- "Do not wash in water"Forced chicory is grown in the dark in sand or peat and is essentially clean; wetting the leaves both waterlogs the ribs and makes the dressing slide off. Wipe each shoot with a dry or barely damp cloth. If yours is visibly gritty, rinse and dry it very thoroughly in a spinner instead of following the instruction literally.
- The dressingThe dressing is one made elsewhere in the book — presumably a plain oil-and-vinegar French dressing with salt and pepper; the recipe itself specifies only 'four tablespoons dressing.' That amount suits three bunches only if the leaves are dry; bitter chicory takes salt and acid well, so taste before adding more.
- TimingDress immediately before it goes to the table. Blanched chicory wilts and weeps within a few minutes of meeting vinegar, and the appeal here is entirely the crispness.
- YieldThe recipe states no yield; three bunches, cut down, would make roughly four side servings.
Forced chicory is generally traced to Belgian growers in the first half of the nineteenth century, who found that chicory roots stored in dark cellars pushed out pale, tender shoots; the loose-leaved version was known in France around the same period, and arguably earlier, as barbe de capucin, a name traditionally said to come from the straggling beard of a Capuchin friar. It was a winter vegetable in the plainest sense before glasshouses and rail freight made lettuce a year-round item. Alexander Filippini, long of Delmonico's in New York, included dozens of such French market items in The International Cook Book (1906), which reads in places less like a manual than an inventory of what a well-supplied city kitchen of the period could be expected to obtain.