By Joel Denker
Pondering the box of artichokes my wife, Peggy, and I, bought at the Dupont Circle Farmers Market, I was mystified. I was confounded by their anatomy and knew little about how to prepare them.
“Undressing” them, to use Greek writer Rena Salaman’s felicitous image, is the first step toward understanding the intricate vegetables. Take off their tough outer bracts, watching out for the thorny tips, peel away more leaves, extract the hairy choke, and make your way to the heart. The artichoke, it appeared, was a different sort of a vegetable. It was actually the unopened bud of a flowering plant that can grow to five feet in height.
We nibble on the leaves and savor their fleshy meat. We devour the heart, the base of the flower. But these gifts are denied us if the tall plant is picked too late. The outer leaves will then have opened and blue-violet flowers will have sprouted from the choke, which is really a mass of undeveloped flowerets. It is now lovely but inedible.
While we Americans confine ourselves to the leaves and the heart, other cultures are more adventurous. Mediterraneans eat the stalks, chokes, the head, and even sometimes the whole artichoke. To experience its full pleasures, try the baby artichoke, which does not have to be dissected to be enjoyed. It can be sauteed whole or served raw in a salad, as I discovered at Sette, the Italian cafe-restaurant on Connecticut Avenue. Tender slices of the artichoke, slices of crunchy fennel, and celery were served in a lemony medley.
Americans favor the green globe artichoke, while purple shades and other shapes are more common in Europe. “Purple has a negative image,” American growers told food writer Elizabeth Schneider. Moreover, we reflexively boil or steam our artichokes, rarely imagining other alternatives like roasting, stewing, baking, stuffing, or pickling them. A lemon and butter dipping sauce is the extent of our dreams. The Romans, in contrast, feast on artichokes braised in olive oil and fragrant with mint and garlic.
Where does this prickly, peculiar vegetable come from?
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To learn more about artichokes, see The Carrot Purple and Other Curious Stories of the Food We Eat, coming in October from Rowman & Littlefield: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442248861/The-Carrot-Purple-and-Other-Curious-Stories-of-the-Food-We-Eat.
