Rosa di Gorizia

A red chicory grown in the market gardens of Gorizia, above all at Sant'Andrea and San Rocco, on the alluvial soil that made the town's name for vegetables. The head closes like a rosebud about to open, whence the name: leaves an intense bright red shaded to pink and garnet, crisp, strongly and pleasantly bitter. The oldest growers remember it always having been there, one of the few dependable winter earnings on farms that mixed vegetables, livestock and field crops.