Chicory (Puntarelle di Gaeta), 'Gaetano'

*This seed is offered as part of the "Gusto Italiano Project", a collaborative partnership between Uprising Seeds, Italian breeders Smarties.Bio, and the Culinary Breeding Network. Certified organic seed is grown in Italy by Smarties.Bio.

Variety: "Gaetano"
Type: Puntarelle
Days to Maturity: 70-90

(Cichorium intybus) At this point, Puntarelle has garnered enough of a following amongst our customer base that it doesn't necessarily need an introduction as a new vegetable (though I have cut and pasted the description from the other variety we have been selling for years below). At this point, now that people have been growing it a bit, we can start to talk a little about nuance. In spite of its primary association with Roman culinary tradition are two primary centers of production in Italy, naturally one around Rome, but the other all the way down in Puglia. The other variety we sell, 'Medusa', is of the type that is grown in Puglia. The heads of these tend to be bigger and heavier, the heading more uniform, and the stems (the culinary part) shorter. As they stretch out the stems tend to need a trim from the bottom as the bases get a bit fibrous (much like the bottoms of asparagus spears). Somewhat unexpectedly, though these types come from the warmer south, they also tend to be more cold-hardy and can be harvested later into the fall.
'Gaetano' is our friends' at Smarties.bio first foray into a selection of the Roman type. While less uniform in heading, the longer slender stems are more delicate and tender and better suited to the traditional preparation of match-sticking and soaking in cold water to gain the distinctive curl for salad use. It comes on slightly earlier than Medusa and is not quite as winter hardy. We feel as though both types have their place in creating a complete program to maximize puntarelle enjoyment each fall.

(About Puntarelle in general: We are crazy about the chicories in general, but puntarelle has been a full-blown obsession here at Uprising. Traditionally grown in the region around Rome, puntarelle is unique among the chicories in that it is the young, hollow bolting shoots that are usually eaten rather than the leaves. They grow into dense beautiful "heads" (referred to as "pigne" or pinecones in Italy) with many points that, upon harvest, are separated, julienned into thin strips, and soaked in cold water to remove some of the bitterness while developing an elegant curl. In Roman markets, vendors can be found prepping the greens using a taglia puntarelle (or 'tapu'), a tool consisting of a fine wire grid (available here) which the stems are pushed through to finely slice them for soaking. The texture is crisp and crunchy with the lovely refreshing bitterness of its radicchio siblings. In Rome, Puntarelle alla Romana, thin strips of puntarelle in an anchovy, garlic, vinegar, and olive oil dressing, is a quintessential winter salad. There it is mainly a winter vegetable, but because bolting is triggered by photoperiod (day length, or more accurately night-length) it generally heads much earlier at our more northerly latitude, usually between mid-October and mid-November. We have been growing this crop for many years here at Uprising, and in the past have found the available seed to be extremely variable, frustratingly producing a relatively low percentage of proper, harvestable plants. These Smarties strains have vastly raised the bar of success in our climate. The timing of planting is very important - check our Radicchiology page linked below for more details on growing.

70-90 days from transplant

Packet: 100 seeds

Growing Info

Please visit our Radicchiology page for radicchio growing info!