Chicory

Pounded to a paste with garlic. Salt beats bitterness every time.

Raw, crushed, in the dressing. Pungency covers what salt misses.

The bitter compounds dissolve into it and spread out thinner.

Sharp acid on a bitter stalk. Nothing sweet gets involved.

Ice water curls the stems, acid keeps them from browning.

The root roasts to the same pyrazines. It was never a fake.

Praline sweetness is the cheapest way to make a bitter leaf edible raw.

Bitter leaf needs sugar with acid attached, not sugar on its own.

Peel the segments into bitter leaves; the fruit is the dressing, not the salad.

Bitter on bitter with acid between them; it reads as clean, not punishing.

Sheep salt is sharper than cow salt, which is what this needs.

Heat gives the tongue a second problem and forgets the first.

Both roasted-bitter; the leaf's edge stops the nut reading as pudding.

Sugar plus dairy makes the bitterness read as intention.

Bitter honey on bitter leaf. Nothing sweetens, everything rounds.

Roast bitterness twice over, and the fat carries both at once.