Radicchio

Radicchio (pronounced rah-DEE-kee-oh) is a leaf chicory (Cichorium intybus, Asteraceae), sometimes known as Italian chicory and is a perennial. It is grown as a leaf vegetable which usually has white-veined red leaves. It has a bitter and spicy taste, which mellows when it is grilled or roasted. Humans have been using radicchio since ancient times. Pliny the Elder wrote of it in Naturalis Historia, praising its medicinal properties; he claimed it was useful as a blood purifier and an aid for insomniacs. In fact, radicchio contains intybin, a sedative/analgesic, as well as a type of flavonoid called anthocyanin which is used for making dye-sensitized solar cells. Modern cultivation of the plant began in the fifteenth century, in the...