Artichokes are not only beautiful to look at but also bring with them a glamorous heritage. The Italians have always been the most imaginative with artichokes. The fashion for them that swept through the Renaissance courts began at the table of the Medicis of Florence. Catherine de Medici ate so many at a wedding feast in 1575 that she almost burst.
It took a while longer for the fashion to reach England, but by 1629 the apothecary John Parkinson recorded that every housewife knew how to cook artichokes and serve them with melted butter seasoned with vinegar and pepper. So it seems strange that artichokes went so out of fashion here that they disappeared at the end of the 19th century and started to filter back into grocers’ shops — as an import with paper collars explaining how to cook and eat them — only in the Sixties.
Artichokes have no truck with the meat-and-two veg school of eating. They are a feast in themselves, their leaves a delicate amuse-bouche, their heart, once you have reached it under the hairy choke, a meaty and substantial feast.
When young and small they can be topped, tailed, sliced very finely and eaten raw, dressed simply with good olive oil and lemon juice, though they really do have to be small and very tender — a hint of mature woodiness and you will chew and chew.
Always have a slice of lemon or some vinegar to rub over any cut surface when preparing artichokes: they discolour as soon as they are cut, though this won’t affect the flavour.
Advertisement
Otherwise, keep a large bowl of acidulated water (2 tablespoons of vinegar to one litre of water) to drop them in as you go along.
To prepare them, remove the tough outer leaves, cut off stalks and gouge out the chokes with a spoon. This sounds easy but until they are cooked, they cling very tightly to their protective choke. I once had to serve takeaway pizza to a party of hungry guests, having spent my allotted hour attempting to prepare artichokes for risotto with a blunt knife.
You are traditionally recommended to cut the top off, but I always question the point of removing the crown of anything so beautiful — the pointy, prickly leaf tips are an integral part of the experience of eating an artichoke, and I’ve yet to meet anyone injured by one of its leaves.
In a fit of flagrant grandeur, you can dispense with the leaves entirely and use the hearts to replace meat in risotto, paella, pasta or even a retro fricassee or stroganoff if you dare.
If you ever come across fresh artichoke paste in a deli, it makes a fine instant supper when spread thickly on sourdough, or stirred into a bowl of spaghetti with olive oil. If you want to make it, mash boiled hearts with a hint of garlic, good olive oil and lemon juice and season well.
Advertisement
Simplest of all and, in general, best received, chop off the stalks near the bottom leaves so that they can sit of their own accord, and drop into a pan of boiling acidulated water (it needn’t cover the artichokes entirely).
Once it returns to the boil, cook for half an hour, testing if it’s done by pulling out a leaf near to the bottom. If it comes out easily and is soft and fleshy at the base, it is ready to feast on, needing no improvement over a bowl of melted seasoned butter with a little lemon juice in which to dip each leaf and then mash the heart into.
If it resists you, even a little, return it to the boiling water for another 10 minutes.
Be wary of tinned or bottled artichokes: while the hearts in olive oil are mostly OK, prepared miniature artichokes are flabby and tasteless, particularly if bottled in brine.