Graphic copyright © 2003 Ruby Jung and licensors. All rights reserved.

All I know about Artichokes

I saw one once, that's more than most Midwesterners can say, growing in a cold frame at one of the college farms. It looked like a thistle that wanted to be a fern - a rosette of coarse toothed leaves that looked like it would hurt you if you fell into it. That was when the black haired girl worked at the Garden Center, the one with the dog and the (wild?) turkey that would chase each other in circles, switch like in a cartoon, but only under the legs of the horse. What was her name? Caroline!

Lets see now, I know how to cook artichokes you stack them up in a big pot and boil them for a long time I think with some oil and onion and seasoning? in the pot. Oil and onion anyway, after you cut through the tops with scissors or a stout knife? It will come to you when you try it. I remember the pot I cooked my first ones in a wedding present a white pot with red lobsters on it and maybe other seafood. I wonder what became of that pot?

I know how to eat them - yum - with lemon/butter sauce or with balsamic Italian with olive oil fixed in the Good Seasons cruet with my own seasoning packet with the Xanthan gum in it (a lifetime supply for 12 bucks, but stick to the point!) I like them best cold I was going to say and then I remembered how good they are warm. You get most of their thorny fingernails off when you trim them but the leaves are still tough with an occasional prickle. If I were an artichoke farmer I'd throw out most of the leaves and just keep the big ones near the bottom w/ the meat at the bases. The little leaves come apart- the ones near the top - I guess you could eat the whole leaf but who would want to? You pull out the flower and scrape the heart clean of the hairy petals and the heart is pockmarked from the hairs growing out of it pale olive green and tender, ridged around the edge where the leaves were stripped away, growing into the darker indigestible stem. It gets bitter if it's too green, but when it's just ripe and tender and juicy it fills your mouth with succulent flavor, indescribable but somehow green.

The bottled ones are good too, packed in oil and lemon juice, impossibly tender and rich but not as flavorful as the ones you cook yourself.

Europeans make an aperitif from the leaves, I know that, and we're selling extract now over here. It's good for a sluggish digestion or irritable bowel and probably for more I don't know about.

And that's all I know about artichokes!

By Ruby Jung. All rights reserved to the piece. I made the corners and you're welcome to use them.