GLOBE ARTICHOKE

This is a relative of the thistle, and the sad truth is that poorer specimens aren't far removed! But this is an aristocratic vegetable, a 'must-have' in the walled gardens of the rich. In part, this is because they take a lot of ground to grow, so are hardly suitable for the peasant trying to maximise the yield of the land.

Unless you've met them before, a description is a pale substitute for a three-dimensional virtual reality model (or perhaps an artichoke?). The scaly leaves are there to be pulled off, and the base of each has a small reservoir of fleshy pulp which is one of the two reasons for loving the artichoke. There's progressively less and less of the flesh as you get towards the smaller and less firm inner leaves. They're best eaten (raw or after dousing in boiling water) by seizing the fleshless end, scooping some butter or mayonnaise with the fleshy end, and extracting the flesh through clenched teeth.

When the leaves have all gone, you're left with the 'choke', a bed of fine hairs that should be cut off, as should the stalk, to leave the 'heart', the second reason for loving artichokes and a great (and expensive) delicacy often sold separately, usually pickled or in brine.

The best artichokes are those where the head is tightly packed -- as the plant ages, the leaves tend to open. But don't be misled by touches of black on the leaf tips -- generally this only means that they caught a frost, and since the flesh and the heart are well protected while the plant is growing, this need be no disadvantage.

The artichoke joins the huge catalogue of plants that are rumoured to have aphrodisiac qualities -- although whether this is true, or simply that there is something inalienably erotic about scooping butter in a leaf and offering it to your lover we cannot say. Suffice it that Henry VIII was convinced, and demanded that his gardener maintained a ready supply of them.It's a long-standing 'detox' remedy, good for your liver, for freshening your breath, as a deodorant and a diuretic!

And, needless to say, it has absolutely nothing to do with the Jerusalem artichoke.

 

 

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