Both chicory and endive were indispensable in ancient and medieval herbal pharmacies and are still used medicinally today. Ancient civilizations all around the Mediterranean knew the plant and took sustenance from it. The leaves are essential to Italian salads and may be served as pot herbs. Basal leaves are the part of fresh chicory usually eaten. However, like dandelion, chicory contains a milky, bitter sap which must be minimized if the fresh leaves are to be enjoyable.
Many cultures simply boil and eat chicory roots like parsnips or carrots.
The roots also can be dried, ground, and made into bread. The use of chicory root to make a coffee-like drink is probably more familiar to most Americans. By the end of the1600's European monarchs could not resist taxing coffee to reserve it for nobility. Presumably the French influence made its way to Louisiana, now a stronghold of chicory coffee in the United States. Wheather using chicory root as a coffee additive or as a substitue, purveyors of the root have not always been strictly aboveboard about including in the blend-especially in times when coffee becomes scarce.