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Thursday, February 6, 2020

Cécile's Chicory Coffee

Bringing New Orleans to your kitchen!

Happy Black History Month! Ever since I started the blog, I wanted to try and do a Black History month feature, but AG's less than perfect track record when it comes to spotlighting Black characters meant for a long time, that would mean just Cécile and Addy themed recipes all month. Not a lot of period diversity there. 

After Melody came out, things looked a little better, but the plan still didn't happen for various reasons (namely, grad school), and we're off to a slow start this month for reasons I won't bore you with. But I promise I have a recipe lined up and ready to go for Cécile, Addy, and Melody, plus a surprise character whose tastes are a little more modern. Any guesses as to who it might be? 

Today we're going to be looking at something I've been wanting to feature on the blog for a long time, but wasn't sure I'd be able to get my paws on it without a trip down south or paying ridiculous shipping for something I don't actually like drinking: coffee. More specifically, chicory coffee, a New Orleans specialty that can be hard to find outside of Louisiana. 

The combination of having a coffee drinking wife and stumbling upon the real deal in our very own grocery store meant I could finally justify sharing the interesting history of this regional favorite with all of you. Read on to discover why people decided to pair coffee with this unusual root.


Chicory has been cultivated by humans since ancient Egypt, and was often consumed alone or brewed into tea by itself as a medicinal herb. Like a lot of traditional medicines, it was believed it could help people suffering from liver problems to gout. Coffee didn't make it to Europe until the 17th century, but it quickly became an extremely popular beverage. While I personally hate the taste of coffee, even when smothered in milk and sugar, I do understand why the drink has captured the hearts and minds of so many people, particularly in an era where anything that could kill the bacteria in your drinking water was a matter of life and death. (Yes, I know germ theory wasn't even a twinkle in the eye of the scientific community in the 1600's, but people did know drinking bad water could make you sick.) 

It's believed that chicory and coffee were first partnered sometime before 1801, when it became a popular drink in France. France quickly became a huge producer of chicory, and the mixture enjoyed similar popularity in other parts of Europe. Coffee culture was already a big deal in the New World at this point, as many Americans turned to coffee over tea during the American Revolution, and New Orleans was an important bridge between French, Caribbean and American businesses. Coffee houses were a valuable part of the city's fabric, as they were convenient places for business owners to meet and discuss transactions. 

By 1840, New Orleans was the second biggest importer of coffee in the United States, meaning Cécile and Marie-Grace's parents could all have been enthusiastic consumers of the beverage. But would their coffee be mixed with chicory?


Possibly. Like a lot of historical food trends, it's difficult to make a 100% definitive claim one way or the other without more concrete evidence, but it's commonly accepted that chicory coffee's popularity in New Orleans postdates the Marie-Grace and Cécile series by a few years. Louisianans - and many other people in the Confederacy - turned to chicory to help extend coffee supplies during the Civil War. Chicory was a particularly popular candidate over other ingredients like beets or parsnips because it has a similar look and feel to coffee grounds. During the Great Depression, folks would again turn to these ingredients to help extend the life of real coffee. 

But chicory coffee enjoys a special popularity in New Orleans, and for many tourists to the city, there's nothing more satisfying than enjoying a café au lait and beignets at Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter. I know I had a good time there when we visited a few years ago before trekking off to the National WWII Museum! At the time, I didn't think to get any of the coffee grounds to feature on the blog because of my aforementioned aversion to coffee, but couldn't help myself when I found a canister of it at our grocery store, alongside mix for their beignets. Jess fried up some beignets to have our own little staycation to New Orleans last weekend. 

So, what does chicory coffee actually taste like, really? 


It still tastes a lot like normal coffee, but it does - according to Jess, anyway, as I really can't tell the difference - have an earthiness to it that adds another dimension to the average coffee taste. If you're looking for something a little different that's hard to find anywhere else, I'd definitely encourage you to give it a shot next time you're in New Orleans, or wandering your grocery aisle. It's a great way to get a taste of an unusual historical beverage that won't require any weird experiments in your kitchen.

I'm not sure Cécile should have ordered this double venti...

1 comment:

  1. A store near me sells powdered chicory. Its kinder to my stomach than coffee, and I use it as a flavor accent to Ovaltine.

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