frisée
ingredient / ingredient-frisee
フリゼ / Cichorium endivia L. var. crispum (Frisée Group)
Frisée is a curly-leaved cultivar group of Cichorium endivia; the French name means "curled". It has narrow, deeply divided curly leaves. The dark outer leaves are described as more bitter, while the pale center, blanched by excluding light during growth, is less bitter. It denotes the same cultivar group as English curly endive and Italian indivia riccia.
Photographs (captions in Japanese)
畑の畝に並んで生育する、細く深く裂けた縮れ葉を持つフリゼ（縮葉エンダイブ）の株。
写っているもの: Cichorium endivia var. crispum部位・状態: 畑で生育中の株（葉全体）
写真: Atilin／ CC BY 3.0／ 原画像／ 台帳の原画像
写真の範囲と来歴
被写体の確認: 原典の記載による同定。説明文「Curly endive」。中心部を軟白化させる前の、外側の緑葉が主体の生育段階と見られる。 画像を開き、細く裂けた縮れ葉が密集した複数の株が畑に並んでいるのを確認した。中心部の淡色化は見られない外側の緑葉の状態。
掲載画像: Wikimedia Commons の原本を長辺2400pxへ縮小。切り抜き・色調変更なし。 表示用には幅1200px上限のWebPを配信し、台帳の原画像は上のリンクから確認できます。
On this page (9 sections)
Reading the bitterness
Frisée names the curly-leaved Cichorium endivia group in the aster family and genus Cichorium; in French it means 「縮れた」 (in translation: "curled"). Taxonomically it corresponds to Cichorium endivia L. var. crispum, also called Curled Endive Group. The University of Melbourne multilingual plant-name database and North Carolina State University extension common-name list support its identification with the same cultivar group as English curly endive. In Italian it is called indivia ricciuta, meaning curly endive. The extent of overlap with the existing general endive entry remains to be resolved.
Frisée’s dark outer leaves are described as more bitter, while its pale inner leaves grown without light are less bitter. According to a U.S. extension explanation, tying the outer leaves or removing them after harvest to exclude light from the center (blanching) slows chlorophyll production, thereby reducing bitterness. This mechanism is a simplified extension explanation, however, without direct chemical-analytical verification. It is at a different level of explanation from findings that light exposure raises sesquiterpene-lactone concentrations in witloof chicory, another member of Cichorium.
An RNA-seq comparison of frisée, described as a more bitter cultivar, and scarole, described as a less bitter var. latifolium, reports differences in expression of several GAS-like, GAO-like, and COS-like paralog genes involved in sesquiterpene-lactone biosynthesis. This account is limited to the discussion of an earlier study (Zhang et al. 2022) in a French doctoral thesis (Domont, 2023); the original paper’s abstract says only 「より苦い品種」 (in translation: "more bitter varieties") without naming the varieties. The evidence concerns gene expression alone, without direct measurement of bitter constituents or sensory testing. The thesis author also cautions against generalizing to C. intybus (industrial chicory), a different species.
Sources for this overview
Checked for this overview: Used the Melbourne University database’s identification with var. crispum.
Cichorium endivia (Batavia, Endive, Escarole, Frisée)
Checked for this overview: Used the extension common-name list’s parallel listing. / Used the extension explanation of blanching as evidence for this paragraph.
Indivia — Cichorium endivia L.
Checked for this overview: Used confirmation of the Italian spelling indivia ricciuta.
Checked for this overview: Used the gene-expression differences presented in the doctoral thesis as evidence for this paragraph.
Checked for this overview: Used the scope of the original paper’s abstract as evidence for this paragraph.
Other names: chicorée frisée (fr), indivia riccia (it)
Structured claims — open a section to read each claim's confidence, evidence and limits
Composition and content (1)
Scope: Taxonomy in the University of Melbourne Multilingual Multiscript Plant Name Database and the common-name list in NC State University extension information.
Note: The plant-name dictionary lists 『Frisée Group』 as an alternative name for 『Crispum Group』. Several independent primary sources agree on the correspondence between frisée and curly endive.
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ingredient-frisee —is_a→ "Cichorium endivia L. var. crispum Lam.(Curled-leaved Group / Curled Endive Group / Frisée Group)"Mechanism and receptors (1)
Scope: An RNA-seq comparison of 2 Cichorium endivia varieties, var. crispum and var. latifolium, as summarized in the French doctoral thesis by Domont (2023) from Zhang et al. (2022).
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ingredient-frisee —has_biosynthesis_controlled_by→ "Differences in expression of GAS-like, GAO-like, and COS-like paralog genes involved in sesquiterpene-lactone biosynthesis, based on an RNA-seq comparison between the more bitter described C. endivia var. crispum "frisée" (in translation: "frisée") and the less bitter described var. latifolium "scarole" (in translation: "scarole")."How processing and cooking change it (1)
Scope: A description by a North American horticultural extension service (NC State University).
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ingredient-frisee —has_perceived_bitterness_suppressed_by→ "The process of excluding light from the heart, either by tying outer leaves during growth for field blanching or by removing outer leaves after harvest and cutting to use only the center. The dark outer leaves are described as more bitter and the light-excluded pale inner leaves as less bitter."Culture (1)
Scope: A description on an Italian agricultural website.
Note: The regional name "scarola riccia" (in translation: "curly scarole") from Campania appeared in search results, but because it is not in the sources compiled for this entry, it has not been recorded here.
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ingredient-frisee —has_local_name→ "Called indivia riccia, or indivia ricciuta, in Italian."