An Italian Vegetable - Giant Dandelions!

[Swissgreys]

We were in the supermarket yesterday and we spotted these giant dandelions.
Naturally we had to buy a pack, and the guinea pigs (and rabbits) went crazy for them.



I think they are Italian.
They were just labeled 'catalogna'


@rome_italy do you know what they are?
And how we should prepare them?
We tried them 'raw' in a salad, but they are really bitter.

Also I only fed a very small amount to the animals, as I imagine they will be super high in calcium.
But I would love to know if anyone else has tried them or fed them to their piggies

 

[sport_billy]

OMG they are huge.... could feed guineazilla with them! BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Giant rodent astonishes science

 

[Hoppity.K]

They look super yummy for a piggy... wow. But I’ve no idea about preparing them etc.... sorry. I’ve never seen them in any supermarket here in UK x

 

[kennethyau]

It’s a type of chicory.

Chicory (Catalogna) | Laughing Lemon

 

[rome_italy]

The catalogna is quite bitter and hard and is usually eaten boiled; I prefer other kinds of cicoria, a bit sweater...
all the plants belonging to the group of "cicoria" are usually boiled (if you want to get rid of the bitter taste you can squeeze the boiled leaves from the bitter water before going on with the cooking) and then cooked again into the pan with oil, some anchovy if you like (instead of the salt), garlic, hot chilly pepper... nothing special, a very fast dish:

and there are also other recipes, cakes, etc (I hate cooking and my daughters like eating the vegs directly from the pan )
Yes, it has calcium, but less than dandelions... its ratio is not that wrong and here many rabbits and piggies are fed with cicoria. At the market we have now loads of that ...
These are the nutritional values (in italian, sorry) I have found online in a website dedicated to rabbits and roditors. It says that catalogna is used for keeping clean the bladder... ?... I don't know.But also a medical website says the same and talk about depurative effects of chicory catalogna on our organs... Maybe it is true. And for sure when here we eat a huge pan of chicory there is always the queue at the toilet then!


Calorie e valori nutrizionali della cicoria catalogna
100 g di catalogna contengono 10 kcal / 42 kj.

• Acqua 93,4 g
• Carboidrati 0,7 g
• Zuccheri 0,7 g
• Proteine 1,4 g
• Grassi 0,2 g
• Colesterolo 0 g
• Fibra totale 3,6 mg
• Ferro 0,7 mg
• Calcio 74 mg
• Fosforo 31 mg
• Vitamina B1 0,03
• Vitamina B2 0,19
• Vitamina B3 0,3
• Vitamina A 219 µg
• Vitamina C 17 mg

Here a lot of people use vegs for baking a sort of a cake, useful for picnics, parties, etc. Most people simply invent the recipe mixing different fillings (vegs+cheese; vegs+sausages) and the veg is always the main ingredient. It is a way for making stubborn children eat the vegs. Once I tried to bake a cake like that... the smoke from the oven was visible from UK... (I forgot it..)

this is filled with only catalogna

and this below is filled with catalogna and sausages

if you like I can translate some recipe