Bitter Together Recap

On October 26th,  we co-hosted Bitter Together, the first event of the 2020 Vancouver Radicchio Festival. The event was made possible by Chef Andrea Carlson and her team at Burdock & Co, who generously shared their space and ability to take fresh, local ingredients to their highest flavour potential. Over a 3-hour time span, guests entered in pods of 4 to sample 8 varieties of radicchio, and left with hot and cold radicchio dishes to indulge in at home.

All of the radicchio varieties featured were grown on our Research & Education Seed Farm in Abbotsford as part of the Canadian Organic Vegetable Improvement Project (CANOVI). A crucial part of breeding improved varieties of crops is to make sure they taste delicious, making sampling events like Bitter Together very valuable to gather feedback. Guests used their smartphones to enter feedback on SeedLinked, the same platform CANOVI growers use to report on a variety’s success in their fields. Radicchio is a crop of interest in BC because of how well it does in our relatively mild climate. Its cold tolerance allows growers to provide fresh, local greens longer into the fall. You can read more about the merits of this quirky chicory here.

If you missed our event, but are a radicchio enthusiast (or even just radicchio-curious), be sure to get a ticket for Taste of Radicchio on Friday, November 20, hosted by the Italian Cultural Centre. This 5-course meal features radicchio in every dish and highlights varieties from all reaches of Italy. You can also find great information on cooking with radicchio by visiting the Vancouver Radicchio Festival’s website. Let’s make the world a bitter place!