(upbeat music) - It's like the poster child for eating local produce in the winter.

- If they wanted to make it blue and squared, they could.

- First thing people will always say is it's bitter, which is true.

- Most satisfying thing that grows in my garden.

- That's what we wait for for the spring.

For all the berries, all the colors, all the this, but there's still colors in the winter.

You just got to find them.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Most Americans haven't given much thought to radicchio.

- It's not new in Italy, but it's new to us.

We see it a lot of times shredded and put into bagged salad mix.

- [Narrator] But for a growing number of Northwest farmers, chefs, and food lovers, there's a radicchio revolution afoot.

Any revolution starts small.

- It's still kind of a fringe crop.

It's a small puddle that we all swim in, - [Narrator] But grows thanks to passionate devotees.

(upbeat music) (rain falling) (birds calling) - We're growing probably a hundred beds of radicchio, 300 heads in a bed.

- It's like 30 to 35,000 heads.

- Yeah, it's a lot of radicchio.

- [Narrator] Radicchio has an extended growing season that helps farmers combat something known as the hunger gap, that time between late November and early March when there just isn't a lot growing, - We have found some crops that enable us to keep money coming in because we have something to sell, and when you've got work through the winter, it means that you don't see all of your employees leave for other jobs and have to rehire again.

(upbeat music) - We want to support our farmers all entire year round, not just the sexy time when everything is available.

I started this project, Eat Winter Vegetables.

It was eight different crops.

Radicchio was one of them.

It has risen to the top, though.

[Narrator] It also happens to be gorgeous.

We have the pink one, now there's a yellow one, the variety Costarossa that has the mid-rib that's pink.

They're very striking, very beautiful and just pops in this winter time where things can be more dull.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] The Italian vegetable thrives here in the Pacific Northwest because our climate is similar to Northern Italy's Veneto region and each radicchio variety takes their name from a town or city there, most within a hundred miles of one another.

(upbeat music) - I started a vegetable garden in our backyard in Seattle in my early 20s, and also had spent some time in Italy and worked on farms there and sort of was aware of this radicchio thing.

- We had a friend who was starting a restaurant and he had worked in restaurants in northern Italy and he was like, "I want you to grow all this stuff for me."

So we went through a seed catalog and he's like, "Grow this, grow this, grow this."

Okay, awesome.

We're going to grow all this Italian stuff.

We sort of figured out growing practices that make radicchio work really well.

We're like, wow, this is a thing that really grows well for us.

And at the time we were like, wow, we're kind of the only people doing this.

So it became a signature crop.

When people say radicchio, it's what they think of as the red round ball.

That's the one that I think sort of ships and travels the best.

This has become The Kleenex of radicchio.

- [Narrator] Derived from the Latin ward for root, radicchio is actually a type of chicory, just like escarole, frisee, and Belgian endive.

- [Jason] It has this really big root system and people would dig it up early winter, late fall, and they'd bring them all inside.

It's almost like a storage crop, it was a food that people could eat before refrigeration.

- [Narrator] And the varieties are seemingly endless.

- [Brian] Variegato di Chioggia.

- [Lane] Tardivo Precoce is elongated.

- [Brian] Gorizia is a forced type, so that's grown in the field and then grown again inside in darkness.

- [Lane] There's one that looks kind of like a teardrop shape, and that one is called Verona.

- [Brian] Rossa di Treviso Tardivo.

- [Lane] Castelfranco.

The more open heads.

- [Brian] Costa Rossa.

- [Lane] Lusia, which is a tighter head, but still variegated.

And of course, the Rosa.

- [Narrator] Many early radicchio types happened naturally, but newer varieties had some help.

- In Italian, cicoria and radicchio, they are exactly the same.

It's a super strong plant because it comes from the wild plant and the domestication was super young.

I mean, it's less than a hundred years story.

- [Narrator] Cultivation happened first in the fields with farmers selecting varieties that were less labor-intensive to grow.

- In the '50s, it was like a wild plant and they were able to make it red and round.

- [Narrator] Chioggia wasn't grown in the US commercially until the 1980s, thanks to a new market for bagged salads, but to unlock the array of radicchio varieties we have now, farmers first needed better seeds.

- You were seeing a lot of variability.

They would just mature at different rates and they would also look very different from one another, which is totally cool when you're gardening, but it's not cool when you're farming professionally.

- Since we've been commercially growing radicchio, the thing that's changed the most has been the advent of these improved varieties, seeds that have only really become available to US growers in the last 10 or 12 years, and it's been night and day.

The varieties that we could get the seed for in the past were pretty bad.

Now they grow, they thrive, they make a beautiful thing, they're much more uniform.

They're the best.

- [Jason] Good breeding.

Thanks, Andrea.

- [Narrator] And that opened the door for radicchio to really take root in the Pacific Northwest.

- Radicchio is pretty important.

If you need to eat something fresh in the winter.

The local produce in the Northwest, there aren't a lot of other options.

- And it's like, oh, instead of eating romaine, I'm going to buy some local radicchio through the winter and it's crunchy, it's a beautiful salad and it's, if you live in Seattle or Portland or wherever, it's probably coming from within 15 miles of where you live.

- [Narrator] But radicchio isn't just for salads.

In Italy, it's often roasted, grilled or cooked into pasta or risotto.

Here, we're open to a little experimentation.

- I really like radicchio for its versatility.

There's just so many different ways you can use it.

We've done a duxelle of radicchio and that's a very French technique done with mushrooms.

I did it with radicchio and then turned it into a huarache.

I like the differences in the varieties and their bitterness 'cause I'm always not the hugest bitter lover, but I do like that there's different levels.

I think I started seeing and working more with radicchio the more and more I went to farmers markets here in Portland.

I started to go to farmers market with chefs every Saturday 'cause I wanted to be able to help more with the dishes, but I felt like as a chef, I needed to see more of what was in season.

Today we're going to be making my rendition of a beautiful Caesar salad using beautiful radicchio.

Oh, that one got a nice dark color.

That's exactly what we want.

It naturally has sugars in it, so that's what happens when you go to really high heat.

Normally it won't happen on a lower heat because then the sugars are just dissolving.

This is actually burning the sugar in it.

The radicchio honestly has been definitely one of the best ones because it holds up really well to the dressing.

I tried it with a leafy green.

It just wilted.

These hardier greens are better for it.

Caesar salad, it was created in Tijuana by an Italian chef during Prohibition, actually, because there was an influx of Americans because it was 4th of July.

They didn't have anything to drink, obviously, in the States, so they came down to Mexico and that's why his restaurant was so full that he started running out of food.

He made a salad that they made in the old country.

He used all the ingredients he had to make a rendition.

It all comes from working with what you have in the moment.

I need to feed people.

This is what I did.

Look at what a great creation has come from it.

- [Narrator] Chef Dani was one of more than a dozen chefs who teamed up with farmers and producers at the 2024 Sagra del Radicchio, where bitter is better.

- I'm among the nerds.

It's the best thing ever to grow.

They melt on the outside in the garden, so you think you've really wrecked it and then you muck it away and there's a perfect, amazing head of radicchio.

- Working with bitter ingredients is such a fun, challenging, creative thing.

Balancing the bitterness with sweetness and nuttiness and creaminess, I think that's what we're all striving for.

(people talking in background) - We're using Variegato di Lusia and we're going to be mixing in some smashed Castelvetrano olives, we have some new olive oil and some citrus pieces.

- It's so beautiful.

Why is it so bitter?

- You want one that's going to hold up.

- It is a little bit bitter, but I'm learning to like it.

- It is a little bitter, but it's delicious.

Dark chocolate is bitter and coffee is bitter and we all love those.

- All the varietals that are here are not only just breathtakingly beautiful, but just adds so much dimension and color to the plate.

We love working with radicchio.

- Sorbetteo made with Castelfranco.

The second one is a gelato made with Verona.

Prego, enjoy it!

- [Narrator] Based on traditional Italian food celebrations, the Sagra del Radicchio grew from a handful of small, on-farm parties into an international extravaganza.

Attendees not only taste the different varieties, but can also get seeds to grow their own, thanks to those seed varieties developed by Andrea Ghedina.

- It's our second season growing and this variety's only been around in the US since 2020, so it's cool to see that it has its own table at an event like this.

- Our food culture is relatively young compared to other places around the world.

To really champion this very diverse, delicious vegetable speaks a lot about sustainability.

This event is as much about farming as it's about hedonism, getting to enjoy ourselves, seeking pleasure through food.

- [Narrator] Grown in a variety of shapes and colors, with a bitter but intriguing flavor and perfectly suited to a Pacific Northwest climate, It's no wonder why radicchio has taken center stage on local plates.

It took some strong Italian roots and the devotion of Northwest farmers to start the radicchio revolution.

(upbeat music) - I think it's more of a fascinator.

It's like- - A what?

- A fascinator.

Kate Middleton wears these.

This is the look.

(upbeat music)