Chicory was not a common plant where I grew up or where I live. But I remember the first time I saw it, in 1990, in a park in Alexandria, Virginia, the bedroom of Washington DC.
What as so exciting was it was textbook perfect. The chicory looked exactly what it was supposed to look like, and that happens so rarely in foraging. That bears repeating: In my decades of foraging chicory is the only plant I did not know which when I found it it looked exactly as it should. That is one reason why pictures are not as good at identifying plants as people think. A good botanical drawing has all the essential elements in representative proportions and eliminates the unnecessary.
At any rate the chicory was instantly recognizable, growing next to a little ditch, and some of the flowers went home with me for my salad. I have since raised its bitter leafy cousins, radicchio and Belgian endive.