'Intybus' was derived from the Egyptian word for January, which was when chicory was harvested and eaten many thousands of years ago in Egypt.
Chicory is considered a salad green rather than a weed in Europe; fresh leaves are sold as radicchio in Italy and the French produce a green they call whitloof chicory, Belgian endive, or French endive by forcing chicory roots to sprout while deprived of light.
It is common to roast the roots and use them as a coffee substitute or additive. Roots can also be eaten raw or boiled, or they can be dried, ground, and used as seasoning.
Chicory is a productive and high quality forage crop that functions well in rotational grazing systems.
The flowers were once used to make a yellow dye while the leaves made a blue dye.
Folk remedies used chicory roots for jaundice, spleen problems, and constipation and a tea made from foliage supposedly promoted bile production and released gallstones.
In one legend telling of chicory's origin, a beautiful maiden refused the advances of the Sun and was turned into a chicory flower that had to stare at the Sun each day and always faded in the presence of its might.
