In Praise of Chicory Coffee
When I was working (and starving) in New Orleans at the Tulane University Bookstore, I couldn’t wait for our morning break. There, in the spacious student union two levels above the basement where I worked stood two giant coffee urns, marked “light” and “dark.” Naturally I preferred the latter. When laced with cream and sugar, gulping down several cups of that cheap thick syrupy brew fortified me for the task of unpacking thousands of textbooks on my daily shifts.
I was no stranger to chicory coffee. Has anyone ever visited New Orleans and turned down coffee and beignets at Café du Monde? Not me. I had been enjoying that for years. Sang its praises gently to my mother on visits home, when her Maxwell House, no matter how lovingly percolated, just couldn’t cut it for me anymore.
But it was after I left New Orleans for Natchitoches Parish that I learned the true mystique of chicory, from an old lady at Isle Brevelle.
Mme. Coutzee was a true Creole gens-de-coleur. She lived on the banks of Cane River, in a cabin that her ancestors had built in the eighteenth century. They were not slaves, but free men of color, with a culture rooted in the wealthy French families of the West Indies who had populated the area for hundreds of years. I was researching local folkways to present to local eighth graders. Ms. Coutzee had volunteered to teach me the basics of chicory coffee.
“First, Robert, the pot.” She could speak French and pronounced my name “Roh-bare”. She eschewed the electric percolator in favor of a white enameled drip pot trimmed in red. “Feel how warm it is. And dry inside. Never a cold, wet pot.”
She turned the iron crank of a square wooden coffee grinder loaded with dark fragrant French-roasted beans. “The beans you must grind just before you make the coffee. That already-ground coffee they sell in the store…well…” She shrugged as if the conclusion were obvious.
She mixed ground coffee and ground chicory together in a small bowl. She grew the chicory in her garden and roasted and ground the dried roots herself. “How do you know how much to add?” I asked. “That you must work out on your own, to your own taste.” She spooned a generous amount of the mixture into the drip pot’s brew basket.
“Now the water.” A dented aluminum kettle steamed on the wood stove. “Never boiling, just under.” We smelled the delectable aroma as the water dripped through the grounds. She turned to another pot on the stove. “The milk, now that you do want to boil a little.”
She poured the coffee into two cups, each holding a spoon. “Notice how the color hides the spoon. If you can see the spoon in the bottom of the cup, it’s too weak.” As she gently rotated the cup she said, “See how it coats the side of the cup with color?” She ladled hot milk in and offered me the sugar bowl.
We sipped the velvety mix. Refined hints of roasted chocolate with wilder grassy overtones of chicory bathed our tongues. And it packed a kick. “Wow,” I said, “I’m getting flushed.”
“Of course,” she said. “Good coffee should make you break a sweat after two sips.”
I mentioned that I had heard that some people ran water through the grounds twice for economy. She looked aghast. “No, no, NO!” She shook her head at the blasphemy of it. “We call that pisse de chouette.” Owl piss.