The Regional Chamber of Crafts and Entrepreneurship of Nova Gorica has set up a promotional campaign for its members within the catering, food and tourism section, with which they want to promote the local vegetable – Gorizia chicory. The campaign, which is an additional motivation to visit restaurants in Gorizia, has been named A month of cooking with Gorizia chicory.
Sukten regut or the famous winter rose is definitely one of our best local gourmet brands, which has “from sowing to harvest“, as the Solkans say, a long way to go. If it is still an ordinary salad in the field, then a transformation is taking place.
“In the barn or basement we force it to grow for about two or three weeks. But before that we leave it in the field, we say in phases or in ruins. it gets such a great shape and color. Hardly anything you pick up in the field, so don’t go looking for the plates,” Last year, one of the producers told us on the set of the show Na lepše while cleaning the cloth regatta Teja Korsic.
Today you will find only about eight families in the Goriška region who raise cloth regattas. It is a specialty that has its price. At the moment you deduct a good 15 euros per kilogram from the manufacturers, but there is a lot of work with it.
“Up to nine times it passes through the hands, depending on the weather. From picking the seeds and sowing to harvesting. It is often harvested three times to make strong roots. The longest is cleaning the chicory” , did he declare. explanation Dejana Basacampaign coordinator at the Chamber of Trades and Entrepreneurship of Nova Gorica.
“As for the seeds – everything is grown at home, it’s a family tradition. In Solkan, it’s like in Modena, where the acetic acid bacteria of balsamic vinegar are passed down from generation to generation. to everyone. The preference is given to those of Solkan.”
Sokan chicory and aquaponics don’t mix
The fabric regatta was brought out of oblivion with the project Goriška radič – from vegetables to art, which was carried out ten years ago by the Tourist Association of Nova Gorica. It was time to brag about Solkan’s radicchio in Slovenian hostels also in winter, but not so much related to it, but more accessible from Treviso. Last year the demand for this chicory was so high that they couldn’t grow it as much, and the outlook for this year is excellent. Sukenski regut is one of many species of chicory that thrive in the wider Vipava Valley and Goriška area. It grows in the fields around Solkan along the Soča River, and two salt marshes must force it to squeeze a little and prepare to force into the sand, where the buds are formed into artificial images of roses.
“If someone were to grow fabric chicory in water, forget about its taste. We have to grow it in our fields as long as we can keep it. Our chicory and aquaponics don’t go together,” he said. -he adds. recounts vividly Toni Gomiscekauthor of a booklet on the chicory of Gorizia and one of the first fighters in the canvas regatta. “Our chicory requires a specific soil and this soil is the alluvium of the Soča. What this soil has accumulated over millions of years, this gives a characteristic of our chicory. I wish that the fields where the chicory grows are not not built and that industrial areas will not grow on them.”
In the past, most fabric regattas crossed the border to Italy. Due to the high price, Slovenians could not even afford it. What was left from cleaning up the regatta was eaten at home. Today, however, this is changing, also to the detriment of the awareness of the local population and caterers, who in recent years order before the season to secure their supplies. One of the regular customers is also Ana Roš.
“It is very important to us that in these uncertain times, caterers in this wider area of Goriška connect with each other with a single story, that they participate in the case of a unique local specialty, which is without no doubt a fabric regatta. We have also connected local meat producers and florists through chicory. The regutta has the image of a rose and it is also beautiful in bouquets, “ volume Roberta Fortune, director of the Regional Chamber of Crafts of Nova Gorica. And another interesting fact from history – if there were no other flowers, chicory was also useful for decorating the port, ready for the newlyweds. On St. Stephen’s Day, when Solka’s patron saint celebrates his birthday, men would go to mass with chicory in their buttonholes.
Protection of fabric regattas and promotion of other types of endives
In the future, other forms of Gorizia chicory should be introduced into production and marketing – from black chicory to other species that still thrive in the Vipava Valley. One such example is elongated chicory, also known as “donkey ears”.
His chapter is also the protection of chicory Solkan, according to which there are more and more calls for fraudsters who sell chicory from other regions of the country under his name. The Tourist Association of Nova Gorica was already committed two years ago to its protection, but the road to its realization is still long. A good opportunity for this could be 2025, when Nova Gorica will be the European Capital of Culture. The initiative has already been expressed by Italian producers who grow chicory in the same fields as Slovenian farmers. Toni Gomiscek says: “We have to be aware that 99% of our chicory with Slovenian farmers is grown in Italy, because the border is drawn that way. One of the bases of protection is that you have a territory where chicory is grown. And we don’t have that territory in Slovenia. It could be a big European cooperation project, that’s why 2025 is so important for us.”
In the past, we have been too modest to boast about Solkan’s chicory. Namely, it promotes not only Goriška, but the whole of Slovenia. And the recipe for the best plate, which was named in Ošterija Žogica “sukenski regut ku no more bet“? Add crackers, boiled potatoes, beans, garlic and poached egg with chicory.
A month of cooking with Gorizia chicory
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