The word chicory means different things to different people. The sharp-tasting salad plant is known as chicory to the French, the Belgians and the North Americans, while in England and Germany, chicory means Belgian endive. They call the salad plant endive. In France, Belgium and the U.S., endive is the cone-shaped, white to yellow plant resembling a small ear of corn. To add to the confusion, there is wild chicory. This plant blossoms with distinctive bright blue flowers along roadsides in both Europe and North America. Its root, roasted and ground, is sometimes substituted for coffee, or added to coffee.

In any event, chicory is probably an Asian native, a plant with slender, serrated leaves, which are quite bitter. Its ascorbic nature mixes well with sweeter lettuce leaves to make a salad of many parts. It is grown much as any salad plant is grown, in rich soil.