I've had chicory coffee a few times in New Orleans and didn't much care for the flavor. I'm a keen coffee drinker otherwise and don't like having extraneous flavors or flavorings (other than milk or cream) added to it.

I think chicory was first used in coffee down there as a filler or substitute when coffee was either relatively expensive or not available. There are various kinds of non-coffee "coffee" products in the market (like Postum and others made of grains, nuts, whatever) that must have some following. But I wouldn't think a true coffee lover would find it enjoyable.

If it's in a cafe au lait I like it. That's what Cafe du Monde serves.

"It is added to the coffee to soften the bitter edge of the dark roasted coffee. It adds an almost chocolate flavor to the Cafe Au Lait served at Cafe Du Monde. The Cafe Du Monde Coffee and Chicory is traditionally served Au Lait, mixed half and half with hot milk.

https://shop.cafedumonde.com/coffee/

Not chicory for my coffee, but I sure would like to find seeds so I could have that lovely blue somewhere in my garden! =)

Oh, roxanna I should have taken a photo when mine was at its peak, right now it is going to seed and looks a bit ratty. A wonderful bonus is the Goldfinches that snack on the seed heads. The birds are light enough to balance on the flower stems. I'll try to snap a photo tomorrow morning or mid-morning when it blooms best.

This same patch has been growing around my mailbox for many years, I trim it back to the ground in the Fall or I should say I mow it down. Our country roads are lined with it, along with the white Queen Anne's Lace. That is until the county mowers come out. Speaking of white, there IS a white variety of chicory that appears every so often. I tried to transplant that into my patch but it didn't take. The roots are very deep, so it's hard to dig a plant up.

Judi, also on the page you linked was this comment, consistent with what I said:

" The taste for coffee and chicory was developed by the French during their civil war. Coffee was scarce during those times "

I'm far from an expert on the subject - there is at least one semi-regular here who lives in France- but to my knowledge, chicory and coffee is not a common drink in France these days. If it is, I'll appreciate learning that.

I agree with Judi. I enjoy the chicory coffee from the Cafe du Monde.

I use my chicory as a vegetable. I only discovered these incredibly easy greens a few years ago when I acquired a Roman son in law. Before that I'd only known it as a coffee substitute and a salad vegetable. In the spring when your chicory shoots up I'd recommend trying it cooked. Boil and then saute with garlic.

I have had it a few times; but not going to rush out trying to find some. It's refreshingly different. I prefer the earthier coffee, like Ethiopian, which I can usually find at TJs. I always buy coffee and have plenty stored. Figure if I need to trade it for something, it's grrrrreat barter material.

I used to drink coffee with chicory when I was in my 20s. I stopped drinking coffee in my late 30s, I think, but I did like chicory in my coffee, partly because it reminded me of New Orleans.

" I always buy coffee and have plenty stored. "

Coffee is much better when fresh.

Not everyone is interested in the long process of buying beans, roasting them, then grinding before making a cup of coffee.

Coffee roasting businesses are as ubiquitous or more so these days as small craft breweries. Both are phenomenon of the last 15 or so years as American palates for these and other products have become more selective.

Few people buy raw beans and roast them. What I consider fresh is coffee that can be purchased within a week or a bit more of having been roasted. That's available to most people for whom the quality and taste profiles matter. More variety of types is available from these sources too.

The coffee stays fresher and more flavorful when purchased in bean form and then ground just before use. The number and range of different coffee grinders sold in the consumer appliance market speaks to how widespread the practice is of buying beans and grinding the coffee at home. For those who don't want the trouble, freshly roasted coffee can also be bought already ground.

For those for whom better tasting coffee doesn't matter, that's another approach.

Sure you can buy roasted beans, but they're still not going to be as fresh as home roasted.

You can be a coffee snob or you can appreciate that not everyone is.

" You can be a coffee snob "

I've avoided mass market coffee for a long time, the same as many others. Take a look at what's for sale in grocery stores and note that the canned, stale mass market American branded coffee of yesteryear doesn't dominate shelf space as it used to.

There's nothing snobbish about preferring something the buyer considers to have better flavor.

The word "snob" is pejorative. Here's a new approach for you to try - try not insulting someone whom you disagree with. It's enough to express the disagreement and stop there. As I have.

I dont know exactly what caused people to add chicory to their coffee and the stories are all over the place but people in New Orleans did it because they liked it when I was there. It is not my preferred sort of coffee particularly because the coffee roast is usually lighter and I like a dark roast. I am fortunate in having been able to go to the Cafe Du Monde before it got rebuilt along with most of the tourist parts of the French Quarter. In the early 1970's the building was melting into the ground and you had to be careful about the floor. It was still the hang out of Bargemen and the local dike workers. I had friends in New Orleans so went frequently, usually around two in the morning. Fond memories.

I wonder who first tried grinding the root and thinking "this could be used as coffee" (or additive).

Where I think elmer is making his mistake? He wants to compare apples to oranges. It's like trying to say espresso is better than chai. Chicory coffee is not meant to taste the same as "coffee". Well, I suspect this is more based on his bigotry towards southern people. I could be wrong but I doubt it. All Southern things are bad 🤨

If I remember the tale correctly, there was a shortage of coffee during the war is how this came about.

Like patricia, I have fond memories of beignet and chicory coffee. Can't have one without the other

Like patricia, I have fond memories of beignet and chicory coffee. Can't have one without the other

Same.

By chance I met my future husband in a French Quarter bakery in 1977. We spent about an hour getting to know each other as we walked the French Market before saying our goodbyes over cups of cafe au lait and a plate of beignets.

I've also heard it was because of a shortage during the war.

I'm a non-coffee person. I've been drinking either Pero or Inka(Polish) for years now. They both list chicory as one of many grains used. Neither taste like coffee exactly. But coffee has an acidic taste to me or really good coffee smells burnt. If I'm staying at a hotel or waiting for my car dealership to do an oil change...I DO drink coffee.

We lived in New Orleans for years , early 80s and we used chickory coffee and got quite used to it . Been away from there for a good long time now and dont think that I actually like the chickory anymore. I like my coffee full flavored and with nothing in it, at all.

I am not going to grind beans. We buy premium coffee and it is fine.

We used to buy that Columbian coffee from Costco and used it for years until it just started tasting bitter. We did nothing different, but the coffee was different. When we first noticed it we had both just come from having had a very, very bad case of a bad strain of flu that was going around and we were both very sick. Nothing tasted right so we just thought it was that.

But, we started buying better coffee and it is not bitter. I dont know what changed.

A couple of years ago I once again bought a can of that Costco coffee, and same thing....bitter.. Sticking to the premium ones now.

Costco has a whole bean French roast that is very good. I am not a fan of Starbucks because to me it does smell and taste burnt. We do grind our own coffee. DH will go through spells of roasting his own. I give him green coffee beans from all over. It is surprising how different coffee can taste.

When I went to the cafe you got your coffee in a big tall clunky white cup of various shapes and sizes and you had to ask for a saucer if you were one of those old people who liked to pour their coffee in a saucer to cool it. I wonder if anyone does that any more. Beignets came in a greasy paper sack and were plopped on the wood table(of questionable hygiene) You tore the bag open to make a plate. The furniture was past rickety. Last time I was in the quarter it had gone all Disneyfied. A very long time ago and I suppose the new has long since worn off. I dont doubt the coffee is still the same. I didnt get coffee that time as the Mississippi was in full flood just inches below the top of the dike and the earth shook under your feet as the river roared by. The Cafe was closed.

" I suspect this is more based on his bigotry towards southern people. I could be wrong but I doubt it "

I accept that many people have opinions that differ from my own. Such an attitude is a bridge too far for you as you've shown over and over. You can't delete this thread (as you often like to do) so instead look in the mirror objectively to see what's there and try to refrain from insulting people who disagree with you.

So I think I can comment here being southern and not southern.

Elmer you have made many comments over the years that make me agree with Rob. I think maybe you dont see it because you are blind to your prejudice. Really. As a person who lives in Washington with a to me inexplicable prejudice towards people from California (you) and as someone who has moved all her younger life I get regional differences. I back Rob in this one. How happy would you be to hear people making swipes at Californians? Are you aware of how much people in Washington dislike people from California?

And for the record I am unaware of your awareness of people differing from your opinions being an acceptable thing. Just saying. Me, I dont care a bit. But I am not really from anywhere in particular so maybe that is why.

Here's the ironic thing Patricia - you fall into the same trap as others. You don't agree with me so I must not know what you know.

Two people can look at the same things and come to very different conclusions and have very different opinions. That's fine. Don't elevate your position in your own mind as being justified and mine being wrong simply because it's what you assume you know that I don't. It may be the other way around as far as insights go, but no matter.

My first visit to Washington as an almost-adult was in 1971, a stay of 3.5 months. I've been back at least a dozen times. When was your first trip there? I've known several people, maybe 6, who have moved up there and most, to be honest, didn't stay permanently. Do you think I've neither seen nor heard anything about local attitudes up there about a variety of things?

My first visit to the South, where I went with no preconceived feelings or attitudes about the area, was also in 1971. None of my ancestors spent time there so my views about the region started without preconceived ideas or biases. You say your's did so likely your views DIDN'T start without biases.

Since this thread was about New Orleans and chicory coffee, my first trip there was in 1973. To visit a college friend who got a dream job but with good news and bad news - the location was the bad news. He left after 2 1/2 years, he couldn't take living there any longer.

I've been back a handful of times since. I don't care for the city or the area at all, people who do are welcome to it. I do like traditional NO Dixieland jazz and music, I don't need to go there to enjoy it. The food I've had there I thought was nothing special and very overrated. The weather is inhospitable much of the year.

I've had many, many, many trips to Southern cities and states and have been all over. Almost to every state. For a variety of reasons. There is ugly history some still cling to, hateful attitudes, and practices and politics I don't like and don't understand why so many do. It's in your face, not undertones. On business trips, I've been there with West Coast and East Coast (non-Southern) colleagues and our feelings about what we saw and experienced didn't vary much. Others who see it differently, fine.

Disagree with me all you want, that doesn't bother or offend me. Keep your personal insults to yourself. Thanks!

Elmer , it is not for everyone, and you are, apparently one of those. You dont know New Orleans and how could you if you never lived there>

It it quirky, for sure and it is an oasis in the southlands.

I remember when real people lived and worked in the quarter. Now, it is all looking like some second rate theme park.... like a very sad disney.

It's character was in it's realness . It was not staged. It just was. Everything and everybody that came up and down the Mississippi left something behind to make the cultural gumbo of New Orleans.

The duck lady on roller skates with her duck always following her, the man down the street who always wore at least three hats at one time and teh lady pulling her friend down the streets in a cart behind a bicycle while the friend played the violin. All of this is normal life for NO.

And where else would you ever get bonked on the head by a coconut that someone painted black and gold and threw from above a float in the parade? Note, the coconut is supposed to be handed to a selected person and not thrown like cheap beads! Or where else would you covet the decorated shoe that someone on the float placed in your hand? Where else would social life revolve around belonging to a Mardi Gras krewe? Or where pretend "indians" dance down the back streets with their highly decorated "chief"?

People who visit dont see much of the real place. But, that is true of tourists everywhere.

By the way, you can get coffee and beignets in City Park, too. Cafe de Monde opened up there .Must have been after Katrina.

Have you ever read "Confederacy of Dunces"? That really was the real New Orleans! For real! Even the guy with multiple hats! He lived in my neighborhood.

My own family came out of Texas and before that out of those southlands. I am just glad that they got that far out, but I got even further out. I know those people only too well, and I left.

New Orleans is about the only place in those southern lands that I would chose. Right now, Louisiana is having a major take over of one political idealogy and it is crushing to see it happen. New Orleans is one place, but the rest of the state is a different story.

Branches of our family are now firmly rooted in New Orleans.

I dont actually think of New Orleans as southern. It has it's own culture. I always thought of it as foreign travel without the money change. We more or less speak a similar language but the culture is so entirely different. You certainly dont have to go to the south to meet bigotry and prejudice. That is everywhere. Perhaps just more obvious. The south is not some big cultural one off. It is a host of differences. Alabama is not Mississippi and even the parts of those are different. But we are talking about chicory in your coffee and how you feel about that. Most people assume it was to make the coffee go further I dont know if that is true. Putting flavorings in your coffee is not a new thing. It certainly wasnt exclusive to New Orleans. We had chicory in the coffee in Mobile Alabama. Now that is also an old city with a lot of influences similar to New Orleans. How I ended up there for a time is a long story but as a result I learned to my surprise that one of my new friends there was a cousin and that they were Creole. Who knew? A big influence in Mobile. Now what if I had casually mentioned to Jean Claude that I though Creole food was not all that special? He would have rightly been offended and I would have miss out on getting to know one of the more unique and interesting people I have ever known and a relative to boot. So the gist here is that old fashioned caution of if you have nothing nice to say then dont say anything is a useful sort of thing. You could end up eating indifferent food in New Orleans because no one will tell you where all the good stuff is to be had.

patricia, you said this:

" if you have nothing nice to say then dont say anything "

but you also said this:

" I think maybe you dont see it because you are blind to your prejudice. "

We have different opinions. Your opinion is the correct one in your mind because it is yours. I disagree with you and so I'm wrong and you need to insult me. This is exactly what I mentioned before. If you want to think that all opinions you disagree with are wrong and rooted in prejudice then fine. Too bad for you.

As for my food experiences, I most distinctly recall one trip when I was staying in a very upscale hotel. It was located a block or two from a large hotel/casino. I was in a group of about 8 people, we were there for several days of meetings. The first two nights' dinners had been arranged through the concierge at two highly regarded restaurants in the French Quarter. The names I don't remember. Most of us were unimpressed and the third day we asked for a recommendation in another part of town. This one I remember well because it was a 10 minute or so cab ride to a non-descript building on a street not in a commercial district. I don't remember the type of food but I remember it was quite good. Maybe a favorite of locals? Why do I remember it? Because of how much better it was than the recommended places in the French Quarter. Is the FQ a tourist district locals don't go to? Fine if so, I get that.

It must be miserable being you. So contrary about every freaking thing.

Tries to ruin every thread he/she comments on.

Sure seems like it.

I almost exclusively restrict my comments here to views I disagree with.

Then please go away! No one wants your negativity.

I almost exclusively restrict my comments here to views I disagree with.

That could be your housewives tag line. 😂

https://www.bravotv.com/the-real-housewives-of-beverly-hills/photos/every-housewives-tagline-ever#10782756

Thanks!