The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Chicory

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

Today we discuss the medicinal and edible properties of Chicory. This is another "weed" that was brought here by our ancestors as food and medicine.Please subscribe to my youtube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzuBq5NsNkT5lVceFchZTtgThe Spring Foraging Cook Book is available in paperback on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRP63R54Or you can buy the eBook as a .pdf directly from the author (me), for $9.99: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-spring-foraging-cookbook.htmlYou can read about the Medicinal Trees book here https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2021/06/paypal-safer-easier-way-to-pay-online.html or buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1005082936PS. New in the woodcraft Shop: Judson Carroll Woodcraft | SubstackRead about my new books:Medicinal Weeds and Grasses of the American Southeast, an Herbalist's Guidehttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2023/05/medicinal-weeds-and-grasses-of-american.htmlAvailable in paperback on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C47LHTTHandConfirmation, an Autobiography of Faithhttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2023/05/confirmation-autobiography-of-faith.htmlAvailable in paperback on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C47Q1JNKVisit my Substack and sign up for my free newsletter: https://judsoncarroll.substack.com/Read about my new other books:Medicinal Ferns and Fern Allies, an Herbalist's Guide https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/11/medicinal-ferns-and-fern-allies.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BMSZSJPSThe Omnivore’s Guide to Home Cooking for Preppers, Homesteaders, Permaculture People and Everyone Else: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-omnivores-guide-to-home-cooking-for.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BGKX37Q2Medicinal Shrubs and Woody Vines of The American Southeast an Herbalist's Guidehttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/06/medicinal-shrubs-and-woody-vines-of.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2T4Y5L6andGrowing Your Survival Herb Garden for Preppers, Homesteaders and Everyone Elsehttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/04/growing-your-survival-herb-garden-for.htmlhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B09X4LYV9RThe Encyclopedia of Medicinal Bitter Herbs: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-encyclopedia-of-bitter-medicina.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B5MYJ35RandChristian Medicine, History and Practice: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/01/christian-herbal-medicine-history-and.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B09P7RNCTBHerbal Medicine for Preppers, Homesteaders and Permaculture People: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2021/10/herbal-medicine-for-preppers.htmlAlso available on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B09HMWXL25Podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/show/southern-appalachian-herbsBlog: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/

Hey y'all, welcome to this week's show. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do this one this week or not. I was supposed to have dental surgery today, but it got moved to tomorrow. So hopefully I can get one done next week. I don't know how bad this is going to be. Broken tooth with many recurrent infections and they had to go ahead and move my surgery up because the infections are getting worse worse every time the point that uh... antibiotics are is getting antibiotic resistance so to finally get a go

and is not enough of the pool since can be cut out so i'm not really looking for this if you give you don't mind please say a prayer for me cuz i am not good with dental stuff and this is not to be fun so i can get through this today and get you one done next week on time. We'll see how it goes. All right, so we're going to talk today about chicory. Now chicory is almost as common a weed, so called, as dandelion.

It looks sort of like a scruffy dandelion, except the flower is blue, or sometimes purplish blue. Usually it's a nice blue. And it was another one of those plants that was brought to the Americas as food and medicine by our ancestors. Most times these days, it's just known as addition to coffee that comes from Louisiana.

If you've ever had Louisiana coffee, it's pretty nasty. Be sure to try some community coffee. Just regular French roast community coffee with chicory. It's delicious. Now, by itself it's a little bitter because chicory is rather bitter. It needs the addition of some cream and if you're, you know, of a mind to, a little splash of bourbon or brandy. That will bring the sweetness out of the chicory.

You'll think you just put, you know, some sweet kind of creamer in there. It's really almost like more of a dessert coffee. Absolutely delicious. Absolutely delicious. And that's all I ever do. I put a little milk and a little shot of bourbon in there and that's like my, you know, dessert coffee after a real nice meal and it's really very, very good. But some people say chicory can be used as a coffee substitute and that's how it kind of got into coffee from really the New Orleans area was as a coffee substitute especially during the Civil War but people got used to the taste and you know they kept doing it. I don't think it's a coffee substitute I would say it's a coffee

flavor enhancer if the coffee is and the chicory are both roasted properly. If the coffee or the chicory is over roasted, burned, you're going to end up with that nasty bitter and you're never going to want to drink anything with chicory in it again, honestly. But no, it's just it's really very good. Now chicory is also what we might call an endiver, andive. The Belgians will actually the breeding of chicory as a vegetable, especially a salad vegetable, really began in ancient Egypt and Greece and Rome. I mean, they just stood up and there were centuries. And they came up with a chicory that's more like a, let's see, is it escar- not escarole,

there's another bitter salad grain that is very similar to. The Belgians though. I figured out how to grow it in dark rooms so it would stay white and it has a more mild flavor. But in, for the most part in America, unless you go to a specialty grocery store, you're probably not even going to see that version of chicory. What you will see is the weedy little blue dandelion side of the road.

The root of that is what we use for medicine. The leaves are a nice edible. You need to get them in the spring. They'll get a little tough. Yeah, I mean I'm not gonna get into a ton of the history. I mean poets in ancient Rome and Greece and I mean Horace wrote his whole diet was olives, chicories and mallows. Presumably he had sort of a bad stomach. But there's a lot has been written on chicory and especially the breeding and development of this plant because it's like corn. You know the corn we just kind of take for granted. That corn a few thousand years ago was nothing more than a blade of grass It took the Mayans centuries of breeding to produce the corn that we know today, and that's still dent corn

That's your grain kind of corn More for animal feed or making tortillas, you know then eating on the corn of the cob It took another century or two of European plant breeding to produce the sweet corn that I just enjoyed for lunch. So if you're a plant geek, you get into this stuff. But we're going to talk more about the medicinal instead of the poets and the botanists. We'll talk about the medicinal uses. D.S.

Cordes wrote about it. He said that boiled and taken with vinegar, they stop the discharge of the bowels and the wild especially are good for the stomach. Now he's talking actually the greens of the plant. For when eaten, they comfort the disturbed and burning stomach. Applied with polenta, and polenta actually means just ground up wheat. He doesn't mean corn because he didn't have corn. Or by themselves. I mean polenta is basically Italian grits. Well now in Italy they make't have corn, or by themselves. I mean, polenta is basically Italian grits. Well, now in Italy they make it with corn. Polenta in ancient Rome was cream of wheat, essentially. Applied with polenta or by themselves,

they are good for heart conditions. They help gout and inflammation of the eyes. The herb and root are rubbed onto those who are touched by a scorpion. And with polenta, they ariciplus, which is a strep tucoccalin's skin infection. The juice from them with, oh mixed with a white lead ore, which we're not going to do now. We don't like to take lead internally, obviously. And vinegar is good rubbed on those who need cooling. There was actually the fairly scant mention of chicory in the Middle Ages.

A lot of those classic herbals leave it out. In fact, even St. Hilgarde von Bingen, the greatest herbalist of all time, writing around 1100 AD, did not differentiate between chicory or dandelion. She used an old German word which was sunny werble. It could have been either chicory or dandelion. She used an old German word, which was sunny wereble. And it could have been either chicory or dandelion. And as they can be used almost interchangeably, it really doesn't matter which one she was referring to. She said it was good for digestive problems,

especially combined with burdock, which is what we often do today, combining dandelion root with burdock or chicory root with burdock or dandelion root and of course the greens are all good too. So, um, dandelion and burdock are like universally common in herbal digestive formulas and for liver and skin health. And chicory can certainly be used interchangeably. Um, German folk medicine though, Father Nape did write about chicory in the late 1800s. He said, and I'm not gonna pronounce the... okay I can probably pronounce this German word,

Wegwort. Okay apparently that was the name for chicory. We found by the roadside patiently to be plucked for the household pharmacy. It is also called turn soul because it ever turns its leaves toward the Sun. The chicory or succory has an untidy rough appearance like an unkempt unkempt child among neater comrades. Its blue flower alone somewhat paler than the cornflower, raised its position and inspired a certain amount of respect. Appearances are often deceitful and so it is with the wild suckery, which under its rough exterior bears a golden heart. Tea of suckery leaves – another word for chicory is suckery, by the way – dissolve congelations of the stomach

and secretes gall and bile. It purifies the liver, kidneys, and milk and secrete unhealthy matter through the urine. The dose is two cups full a day, taken in the morning and evening for three or four days. Pains and inflammation of the stomach may be relieved by a compress dipped into a hot infusion of succory leaves and flowers renewed two or three times a day. Chicory leaves may be expressed in spirits, which will serve to rub on consumptive or dwindling limbs two or three times a day. As leaves and blossoms, so also the roots may be employed for the same purpose.

These are easiest dug up in rainy weather. That's interesting. Brother Aloysius was his protege and he was more the professional herbalist. He said, while chicory grows abundant on high grounds, dykes along roadside verges is an herbaceous biennial plant with a gray-green color. The leaves are oblong, deeply cut. They look like a dandelion leaf. The pale blue flowers bear a great resemblance to cornflower, but are larger. The long yellowish root, like the leaves, contains a bitter sap. Leaves and roots can be used medicinally. The former are gathered in June, the roots in September. A leaf infusion consists of 1 fourth to 1 half cup per 2 cups boiling water and 2 cups should be taken daily. The root decoction

is 1 third to 1 half cups boiling water. This should be reduced by half and a tablespoon should be taken every two hours. The leaf infusion is recommended for constipation, mucus stomach, and excessive gall. It cleans the liver, spleen, kidneys, stomach, and promotes digestion. A tincture of the root and 75% alcohol is used externally to rub weak limbs twice a day. Take two cups tea made from the leaf decoction as an excellent remedy for mucus stomach, for it encourages digestion and puts the stomach in order again. The decoction of the roots and leaves and stems is highly recommended for pneumonia and chest cataract or congestion.

Father Kuhnzel, I guess writing about 1920 said, The chicory was already known as a medicinal plant in ancient times. A coffee type drink was made from the root of chicory. So it is by no means a modern factory product, but urban luxury product that has been known for centuries which was also used to keep the body healthy. Not only the roots but also the leaves of grafted chicory are used. Though through the roasting process the root provides the well-known luxury food under the name chicory that is developed into an excellent coffee additive. Chicory owes its wide distribution to its health-promoting properties in particular. It stimulates the appetite

and has a beneficial effect on digestion. Turn to the English tradition, Gerard in the 1500s, said, these herbs, when they be green, have virtue to stop the hot burning of the liver, to help the stoppings of the gall, yellow jaundice, lack of sleep, stopping of urine, and hot burning fevers. A syrup thereof and sugar is good for the disease as aforesaid. Distilled water and good potions, cooling and purging drinks, the distilled water of endive or ande,

this actually anyway, chicory, plantain roses profiteth against excoriations in the conduct of the yard. I don't even know what he's talking about. I'm not, yeah. Yeah. Hmm. You know, somehow I think he's talking about urinary stones, gravel.

Interesting. Why would he call it the yard? I don't know. But he said it should be injected with a syringe. I'm starting to get the idea. This does not sound fun. Okay. Yes, I think I know what he means now and that definitely does not sound fun. I would not wish to be catheterized in the 1500s. Wow. These herbs eaten in salad or otherwise, especially white on dive or on deep. You can pronounce it any way you like and that's

because it was developed in Belgium and it is pronounced with a Flemish pronunciation, a French pronunciation but became most popular in England where it's pronounced in dive with an English pronunciation so whatever pops out of your mouth is just fine and don't let anybody tell you different it's not like that skiing area in Switzerland stod and it's like well if you say gestad because there's a G in it or you say stod you know you're either like high class or lower class and and nobody will give you the secret of which one's right right you know it's not that way with endive the leaves of suckery are good against the inflammation of the eyes being outwardly applied to the grieved places. About a hundred years later, Cole Pepper said,

he talked about the garden variety and the wild. Let's see, does he give anything new we haven't talked about? No, no, no he doesn't. He liked the wild one more for medicine though. He said, a handful of the leaves or roots boiled in whiner water, and a drop thereof drank fasting, drives forth choleric and phlegmatic humors, opens obstructions of the liver, gall, and spleen, helps the yellow jaundice, heats of the reins, the reins or the kidneys by the way, and of the urine, the dropsy also, and those that have an evil disposition in their body by reasoning of long sickness and evil

diet. So if you've been sick for a long time or have an evil diet, very good for you. Yeah, I don't know what that means either. Good for the liver though, so maybe it's just, you know, a lot of drinking and bacon, I don't know. I think they're English, you know. In the 1600s they lived on alcohol and bacon, so and didn't like to drink a lot of, eat a lot of vegetables, so maybe that's it. A decoction thereof made with wine and drank is very effectual against long lingering agus or fevers.

And a dram of the seed in powder, drank in wine before the fit of agu helps drive it away. So it would help with preventing a fever. Distilled water of the herb and flowers hath light properties and is especially good for hot stomachs and agus, either pestilential or of long continuance, for swoonings and passion of the heart, for the heart and headache in children, for the blood and liver. The juice of the bruised leaves applied outwardly allay swellings and inflammation, St. Anthony's fire, which I believe is what we call shingles now, pushes, wheels and pimples, especially especially used with a little vinegar and also to wash pestiliferous sores, infected sores. The said water is very effectual for sore eyes that are inflamed with redness and

for breasts that are pained by the abundance of milk. Wild suckery as it is more bitter so is more strengthening to the stomach and liver.. Grieve gets way into the history. We'll skip a little bit of that. Quotes from Virgil Ovid Horace and Pliny talks about how the endive was developed. And it's interesting. See my book, the Encyclopedia of Bitter Medicinal Herbs if you want to read about it. Or in her book, a modern herbal. Yeah, a modern herbal. Two volumes. Parts to use medicinally the root, she said, when dried. Medicinal uses. Chickery has properties similar to those of dandelion. It's action being laxatonic and diuretic. Also excellent food, I mean as I have mentioned there are many ways of cooking endive.

I have recipes for wild chicory in my spring foraging cookbook and recipes for the cultivated variety in the omnivore's guide to home cooking. But you can find a thousand of them online. The French are very big on braising chicory in a pot, just whole heads of it with a lot of butter and nice sauce. It's very good. Or you can use it in a salad. As I said, creole coffee.

I've also got the recipe for creole coffee and the history of it in my book. The proper way to make it, which is almost a ceremonial, it's a Japanese tea ceremony for the Creoles and Cajuns, especially before modern times, they'd have this coffee in the morning, then they'd pour it in a bottle with maybe about a third, well, fourth of that bottle being brandy, put a cork in it, stick it in the back pocket of the overalls, go out to work in the field and just sip on that throughout the day. And it kept them going until lunch.

They'd have a big farm lunch and probably another pot of coffee and go right back out and do the same thing. So it's a good tradition. So I think we can wrap it up there. Yeah, it's a great plant for foraging. It's a great plant medicinally. Just think of it as a blue dandelion and learn to identify it.

And of course the garden variety endive is really very good food and it does have some medicinal properties of its wild component. So y'all have a good one. I'll talk to you next time. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers tomorrow as I go in for dental surgery. I'm not looking forward to that in any way, shape or form. And God willing, I'll be able to talk to you next week. Have

a good one. The information in this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition. Nothing I say or write has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I'm not a doctor. The U.S. government does not recognize the practice of herbal medicine and there is no governing body regulating herbalists. Therefore, I'm really just a guy who studies herbs. I'm not offering any advice.

I won't even claim that anything I write or say is accurate or true. I can tell you what herbs have been traditionally used for, I can tell you my own experience, and if I believe in herbs, help me. I cannot nor would I tell you to do the same. If you use an herb anyone recommends, you are treating yourself. You take full responsibility for your health.

Humans are individuals and no two are identical. What works for me may not work for you. You may have an allergy, a sensitivity, an underlying condition that no one else even shares and you don't even know about. Be careful with your health. By continuing to listen to my podcast or read my blog, you agree to be responsible for yourself, do your own research, make your own choices, and not to blame me for anything ever.