A Quilt of Ham and Cream

There are a lot of different chicories now available to us, but by far the most common and easiest to find is perhaps the finest of all. Were the Belgian, or witloof (trans: ‘white leaf’) endive not so common, it would doubtless be more highly esteemed.

Should you buy the ‘plain’ white endive, and not the slightly more expensive and pretty but rather pointless red endive, I think you are getting a bargain. Bearing in mind that every head of endive represents one complete root that has grown for a hundred and twenty days, its foliage cut back, then replanted and the fresh growth cultivated in the dark, it all sounds a laborious process for the fairly trifling sums that it costs in the shops. Furthermore, there seems to be a universal quality standard: they are almost always beautifully grown, forming compact and creamy white heads composed of delicate tender leaves. They rarely have an overdeveloped stalk or excessive colour on the leaf tips, the two faults that they must be prone to.