Trader Joe's is selling New Orleans Style Coffee with Chicory.

Somehow, I can't see adding lettuce root to my coffee as any kind of desirable thing.

I know, I know, starting in the mid 18th century, French settlers were bringing coffee to NO from the island of Martinique. These French settlers had been forced to drink coffee infused with chicory because of civil war and coffee shortages.

This type of coffee became a tradition for New Orleans, virtually synonymous with the city.

Would someone explain to me how on earth coffee polluted with lettuce can taste good? Preferable, even, to regular coffee? Maybe because chicory root is toxic to intestinal parasites? There's an encomium for you: It will reduce your intestinal worm infestation. Yum!