Bitter. How are you with it? Italians are masters of bitter greens. Historically it comes from #cucinapovera roots of foraging for wild food, so much of which was bitter and finding a way to make it nice! . Bitter greens were often eaten with pork. The flavours pair, but here the wisdom of tradition comes through: bitter helps stimulate the compounds that digest fat. Genius. . Much of my Italian ‘language-learning’ these days is reading historical food books. I love what I am learning. And then, I try it! . Here we have chicory. I soaked it in water for an hour, this helps remove excess bitterness. I then boiled it for about 10 mins, before draining and transferring it to a hot cast iron pan that contained chopped onion and garlic, lightly-fried in olive oil. I then generously squeezed lemon over the top. . My 6-year-old loved it! Not bad, eh?!