Chicory: History And Application

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

The culture of chicory cultivation dates back to ancient times. Already in Ancient Egypt and Rome, chicory leaves were used as food as a medicinal plant.

Chicory in Egypt enjoyed particular attention. The healing properties of common chicory are mentioned in the ancient Egyptian papyrus of Ebers (XVI century BC), and in the works of ancient doctors and scientists (Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny the Elder). Avicenna used chicory to improve digestion and treat joint diseases.

Since time immemorial, residents of Europe, Asia, Africa, India, Indonesia, and the USA have used chicory as a medicinal plant. Roasting chicory roots and brewing them like coffee began in the 16th century.

Gardener's guide

Plant nurseries Stores of goods for summer cottages Landscape design studios

During the time of the Romans, chicory was used as a salad, as a medicinal plant, and both wild and its cultural forms were known.

Chicory has been used to increase appetite, improve digestion, liver and kidney function. Used its astringent, disinfectant and diuretic actions that improve metabolic processes. It was used for skin conditions such as eczema, acne, furunculosis, non-healing ulcers and wounds.

In those days, chicory was used as a medicinal plant.

The emergence of chicory in Russia

In Russia, the cultural cultivation of chicory and its industrial use began in the time of Peter 1. According to one of the versions, Peter I met chicory as a substitute for coffee during his visits to Holland. Peter I sent Porechians, residents of the village of Porechye-Rybnoye, Rostov district, Yaroslavl province, famous vegetable growers, suppliers of vegetables to the tsar's table, to learn gardening in Holland. Then in Porechye-Rybny there was a royal garden, which supplied the royal table with cucumbers and peas.

According to the second legend in Russia, the first data on the cultural cultivation of chicory date back to the end of the 18th century. Rostov regional historian I. I. Khranilov noted that initially the processing and cultivation of chicory in Russia was carried out by the German Hackman, who had a plow for chicory in Vyborg. He made ground coffee from it, which he sold in paper tubes in St. Petersburg and other cities. The demand for cyclic coffee was insignificant at the time.

Notice board

Kittens for sale Puppies for sale Horses for sale

Working for a long time with Hackman, a peasant from Porechye, I. B. Zolotakhin, mastered the basic operations of growing and processing chicory: how to sow, tear, wash and chop, dry and burn, grind and stuff into tubes. The gardener returned to Porechye with the intention of developing this trade at home, "taking with him pounds of heels of seeds."

II Khranilov emphasized the outstanding role of Zolotakhin, who was a propagandist of a new, not yet known trade: “… a monument should have been erected to Zolotakhin in Porechye with an inscription in gold letters“Eternal memory”. The deal turned out to be very profitable. This can be judged by how Ilya Zolotakhin at the end of his life donated 40,000 rubles to the temple of Nikita in his native Porechye, to the royal gates made of cast silver.

Be that as it may, on the Yaroslavl land, the beginning of the cultivation of chicory as a commercial culture, as well as its processing, was laid in the 18th century by the peasants from. Porechye-Rybnoe, Rostov the Great.

Chicory appeared in the gardens of Porechye-Rybny and began to be grown for subsequent processing and use as a substitute for coffee.

By the 1820s. the cultivation of chicory for commercial purposes took a firm place in Porechye and began to be quickly borrowed in the surrounding villages. In the vegetable gardens, per capita, 1 pound of green peas, 1–2 quarters of potatoes, and 1 / 2–1 pounds of chicory were sown. The average yield of green peas was itself-10, potatoes - itself-9 and itself-10, chicory - itself-8017. In most suburban Rostov settlements, chicory, green peas, and potatoes were the leading garden crops. In general, in Porech'e, up to 400 pounds of cyclic seeds alone were sown on an area of up to 10,000 ridges, and up to 10,000 poods grew.

Chicory was sown in early spring, partly with its homegrown seeds, and mostly from abroad - German. It was sown both in whole ridges and on the sides of other ridges, on which onions and other plants were previously planted, not very often. A pound of cyclic seeds were planted from 10 to 15 decadal beds. The harvesting of root crops, including chicory, was carried out after the onion harvest, from the beginning of September.

Beets and carrots were harvested first, then parsnips, parsley, rutabagas, then chicory, so that the work would be completed by September 20, before frost. Excavation of chicory was carried out with a special iron shovel - "korul", or a cyclic shovel. Dry chicory in the form that it went on sale until mid-winter was obtained from a tithe from large roots 202 pounds, and from small ones - 90 pounds.

Cyclic coffee preparation method

The method of making cykor coffee, used in the village. Porechye, was taken out, according to the old-timers, from near Riga, where before many from Rostov went to work in the gardens and gardens of the Germans.

In the 1800s-1880s. The main way of processing chicory was barn and rack drying, which gave the product a smell of smoke, changed its natural white color to light gray. After washing, the chicory was taken to the yard or to the dryers, where they began to cut it. The chicory was cut with thin knives into longitudinal strips, into 4, 6 and even 8 strips, the largest - into more than 20 pieces. Then it was crushed, sharp across, into cubes.

Chopped chicory was dried on tiled stoves, ovens, barns and dryers. The method used in the Rostov ride consisted of deep roasting of cyclic roots over fire in iron cylinders. Roasted roots were powdered in mills. Then the powder was poured into cylindrical caps or tubes, then subjected to prolonged exposure to warm water vapor, from which the material was refracted and subjected to some kind of fermentation.

Another method of making cycor coffee, without burning the roots and not in the form of powder, but in cut pieces, through their light toasting, was invented by the doctor Morenko in Suzdal. From Morenko in 1830 a new method of cultivation and preparation of coffee from the Cichorium intybus plant and peppermint passed to the Rostov district.

In 1834, it was produced: chicory - up to 40,000 poods at 6 rubles. Peasants making cykor coffee using a drying bar Porechye, judging by the documents, began to study by the 1820s. The village was home to the oldest chicory processing enterprise in the Rostov district - the factory of the brothers Nikolai Yakovlevich and Vasily Yakovlevich Pykhov.

“The chicory prepared at this plant is the best in terms of its quality and conscientiousness of preparation,” wrote one of the Rostov regional historians in the 90s. XIX century. There were six medals on the label, in addition, there was a commendation from the Vienna Exhibition44. In 1830-1870. The peasants Lyalins, Pelevin, Ustinov and Shestakov also had cycling establishments. Six cyclic factories in the village. Porechye had a total output of 8000 poods., 7200 rubles. ser. In total, 32 people were employed here. A specific feature of the Rostov district was the use of water and windmills for grinding both bread and chicory.

The history of the "cyclic" industry

Most of the large chicory processing enterprises were concentrated in the settlements of Porechye, Sknyatinovo, Karavaevo and Klimatino, located on the eastern and northeastern shores of Lake Nero. Their total output was over 20,000 poods for up to 19,000 rubles.

There were significant crops of chicory, in the large village of Porechye other branches of the handicraft industry were developed, there were a significant number of workers who came to be hired to work; regular bazaar trade for the sale of products. Porechye was the center of a scattered manufactory - the distribution of raw cycor root to peasants of other villages was made to turn it into a semi-finished product and a finished product. Water and windmills were widely used to grind chicory.

Chicory prices during the first half of the 19th century were subject to strong fluctuations and as the volume of its production by peasants with. Porechye and other villages decreased.

If at the beginning of the XIX century. black chicory was sold in Rostov for 2 rubles. 50 kopecks ser. for a pood, white chicory - 7 rubles, pipe chicory - 4 rubles, Russian coffee - 9 rubles, then in 1851 black chicory was already on sale for 40 kopecks, white chicory - 3 rubles. 80 kopecks, pipe chicory - 1 rub. 40 kopecks, Russian coffee - 2 rubles. ser. for a pood. That is, prices for different varieties of chicory have decreased 2-3 times over 50 years.

Summing up the annual total product of this industry throughout the Rostov district, I. I. Khranilov called the production volume of all varieties of chicory at 800,000 poods, and the total amount of its sales, based on an average price of 1 ruble. 25 kopecks ser. per pood - 100,000 rubles. ser.

Rostov gardeners took part in regional, all-Russian and international exhibitions. For example, a peasant with. Ugodichi A. Myagkov for the production of cyclone coffee received a silver medal of the 2nd degree in 1845 at the Velikoselskaya exhibition 56. In August 1858 at the exhibition of art, manufactory, factory and other works of the Yaroslavl province from the peasants with. In addition to herbs and vegetables, white chicory was presented on the river.

At the Moscow exhibition of 1864, from the lists of exhibitors of the Yaroslavl province, who received prizes and awards awarded by the Moscow Imperial Society of Agriculture, a peasant with. Porech'e A. Ya. Ustinov was awarded a commendation for the cyclic coffee.

The importance of the appearance and distribution of chicory in the Rostov land is extremely great. Chicory occupied large areas not only in vegetable gardens, but also in the plowed fields of a large part of the lakeside rural settlements. Chicory was no longer a final product, as, for example, Rostov onion, but a raw material for the developing food industry, a typical market crop, whose crops grew and decreased depending on demand. In its production and marketing, there was a sharp competition.

In 1884 the merchant A. P. Selivanov opened a steam cycling plant in Rostov on Podozerskaya street. Its products came out under the sign of the firm "Trading house of A. P. Selivanov's sons". In 1896 chicory was produced for 250,718 rubles. At the factory, for 285 days, 74 adult men and 34 teenagers worked in one shift, who were given salaries in the amount of 11485 rubles. The equipment consisted of two boilers with a heating surface of 622 sq. feet, one engine - a steam engine with a capacity of 31 liters. force 61.

At the beginning of the XX century. this enterprise was equipped with the latest equipment, nine roasting drums produced about 900 poods of products per day. In 1909, 165 workers worked here 62. In 1896, I. A. Vakhrameev, the grandfather of the current Primate of the Belarusian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Filaret, founded the firm "The Rostov Cycling Production Association" I. Vakhromeev and Co. ". In addition, FF Strizhnikov's factory operated in Rostov, and D. P. Ustinov's factory in Petrovsk.

Since the 50s of the 18th century, chicory as a purely industrial local culture began to occupy one of the first places in the budget of the Rostov peasantry, giving it an income higher than from other cultures. In a number of villages in the Rostov Uyezd, the area under chicory was brought to 50% of all arable land.

In 1866 640 tons of chicory were sold from the city of Rostov and the Rostov district, and in 1893 this amount rises to 5360 tons. It served as an export item. From here the dried product of chicory root crops went to the ports of Riga, Revel, Libau, and then abroad - to Germany, England, Sweden (L. N. Kryukov, 1919).

In 1893, 5360 tons of cyclic products were produced in the Rostov district, and in 1895 - already 6542 tons. Part of this production was exported abroad. In 1910, chicory was cultivated in 211 villages. Four large factories operated in Rostov and Petrovsk, with 23 roasting machines, with 440 workers, with fixed capital up to 400,000 rubles, with working capital up to 500,000 rubles, which produced up to 7406 tons of finished products per 1,655 RUB 500 and received a net profit of over 150,000 rubles.

In 1911, 7,934 tons of cyclic products were produced for 1,597,400 rubles, and in 1912 - 7,882 tons, for 1,383,300 rubles. The Rostov district produced 56.75% of all cyclical products produced in Russia.

In 1911, 20 Russian cycling factories processed 7,934 tons of chicory root crops for 1,597,400 gold rubles, and the share of the Yaroslavl province accounted for 57.0% of the total production, 4 provinces of Poland - 34.2%, the Baltic states - 8.1%, the share of all other regions is only 0.7% (B. A. Panshin, 1935). The area under chicory in 1911 in the Rostov district of the Yaroslavl province was 4,264 hectares. At this time, root chicory was grown only for the needs of coffee-cycle production.

During the Soviet period, the Selivanovs' factory was nationalized. In 1924, the equipment of the liquidated Pykhov cycling plant was transported here from Porechye. During the NEP years, among the peasants of 10 volosts of the Rostov lakeside villages, cycling dryers continued to function, many of which later became collective farm.

A decisive shift in the attitude towards chicory took place in our country after in 1911 Professor F. I. Shustov and in 1931 by engineer D. A. Poyarkov found that chicory can be not only a valuable coffee surrogate, but also an excellent raw material for processing into alcohol. Data on the study of root chicory as a technical culture (Rostovtsev, 1924; Kvasnikov, 1938; Uspensky, 1944, and others) show that it is a valuable raw material not only for the coffee-cycling, but also for the alcohol industry.

By a special government decree in 1931, a special cyclic trust was organized, and in 1932, a chicory research institute with a network of experimental stations, and the chicory culture was extended to a number of new regions, incl. Moscow and many western regions, the Central Black Earth Region, the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the Ukrainian SSR, the BSSR, Western Siberia and the Gorky Territory. As a result of these measures, by 1938 the area under chicory in the USSR reached 81,700 hectares.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Rostov coffee-cycling factory produced food concentrates, confectionery and rusks for the front.

However, the necessary preparatory work for the transfer of the alcohol industry to new raw materials was not carried out. This, given the rapid growth of acreage, led to the accumulation of large batches of chicory roots at distilleries and the impossibility of its timely and correct processing. This circumstance, as well as the greater labor intensity of the methods of growing chicory in comparison with potatoes, contributed to a sharp reduction in its sown areas in the regions of the alcohol industry.

This circumstance did not affect the cultivated areas of chicory culture in the Yaroslavl and Ivanovo regions, where it was cultivated only for the needs of the coffee-cycling and confectionery industry. The demand for chicory for these purposes was constantly growing. By the decision of the executive committee of the Yaroslavl region of January 21, 1971, No. 408 "On measures to increase the production and sale of chicory roots to the state", measures were envisaged to increase the acreage under the chicory crop.

As a result of their implementation, the sown areas of chicory in the Rostov region were increased by 1985 to 1,507 hectares, and the maximum gross harvest in 1984 was 11,715 tons. The areas occupied by chicory in the structure of sown areas increased from 5.5% in 1979 to 7.5% in 1985

In the 1960s-1980s. The cycling factory was one of the most developed enterprises in Rostov, equipped with high-performance equipment. She was part of the Kofetsikorprodukt production association. More than 10,000 tons of various coffee drinks of fourteen names were produced annually, nine of which contain chicory. They also produced ground and pasty chicory, coffee with chicory. In the 1970s. on the shelves appeared the first cans with a thick, pasty mass of dark brown "Instant Chicory". It was quickly appreciated and not so easy to buy.

In the 90s, due to the extremely difficult situation of agricultural enterprises and their lack of funds to pay for weeding and harvesting of root crops, which are carried out everywhere by hand, to buy machines with which it would be possible to perform these works mechanically, as well as to purchase high-quality sowing crops. material, mineral fertilizers, pesticides and fuels and lubricants, there was a gradual decrease in the acreage of chicory from 997 hectares in 1990 to 240 hectares in 1999, and the gross harvest decreased from 4055 tons to 589 tons, respectively. At the same time, the profitability of chicory production remained quite high and ranged from 39.8% in 1990 to 89.0% in 1993.

In 2001-2003, due to numerous reorganizations, redistribution of property and re-profiling of processing enterprises, the acceptance of root crops was not carried out at them, and chicory was not cultivated. In recent years, the production of a pasty and dry packaged product from chicory root crops has been established.

The demand for root vegetables has increased dramatically. However, the lack of labor resources, the lack of special equipment and herbicides in the cultivation of chicory, the poorly resolved issue of the selection of varieties and seed production make this crop unattractive for large agricultural producers.

An increasing share in the gross harvest of root crops is beginning to be occupied by private peasant and private farms. However, the amount of local raw materials does not cover even a fifth of the needs of processing enterprises, which are forced to purchase dried chicory in France, India, and Ukraine.

In 2015-2017, chicory was practically not grown on the territory of the Russian Federation. Scientific research carried out in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has proven the benefits of chicory and its processed products. The most valuable biochemical composition of chicory root, the prebiotic properties of chicory, the presence of inulin in the root and leaves of chicory in large quantities (up to 65% of dry matter) make it possible to use chicory for the production of functional food products with a high healing effect.

Traditional bakery, confectionery, dairy products, animal feed, endowed with prebiotic qualities with the help of chicory, will help to improve the health of the country's population and create a new branch of food production with added healing qualities. These are innovative products of the 21st Century.

For gardeners, root chicory is a promising root crop that is easy to grow in a garden plot. It is only necessary to purchase seeds of cultivated varieties to obtain a fairly large root, white "carrots" up to 20-30 cm long. Having dug up the root before the first frost, washed it, cut it into strips, the pieces can be easily dried by placing them on a battery in a heated room.

And then the dried chicory can be used all winter long, making decoctions to prevent colds and treat sore throats. And you can fry a little dried pieces of the root and use the grind as a coffee substitute. It is not necessary to deeply fry, from the high temperature inulin breaks down into fructose (hydrolyzes) and loses its health properties.

Read the rest of the article: Chicory: composition and medicinal properties →

Baevsky Vladimir Viktorovich, Director of Sovremennik LLC

e-mail: [email protected]