A long time ago in a galaxy that looked a lot like the dusty outback of inland California, I was driving north to visit Paul and Linda in their East Bay cottage. Apparently it was harvest time for the artichoke crop.
The Castroville hinterlands were awash in artichokes (for more formal discussion of artichoke production, see http://www.acornadvisors.com/Cucina_Fresca/CFNV_Finished_Newsletters/CFNV_Artichokes.html#LETTER.BLOCK8). Improvised market stalls lined the highway with signs offering dozens of ‘chokes on the dollar. Big harvest boxes of ‘chokes were purveyed [good word, no? Unnecessarily pretentious, but still a good word) for ten or fifteen dollars.
I came very close to purchasing a big-ass box of artichokes. Talked myself out of it by imagining the struggle to get said box into the overhead compartment of next day’s plane toward home.
Here in the culinarily challenged US of A the only artichokes we routinely see are the enormous globe variety. They’re very tasty but logistically challenging. Nor do they provide much comestible diversity. They can be stuffed (the family stuffing is parmesan cheese, tons of minced garlic, a little dried basil and dried oregano, bread crumbs, olive oil, salt and pepper) or the leaves dipped in a sauce (garlicky melted butter or olive oil works pretty well). But that’s about it. These globe flowers are mature, and they have many woody leaves to remove and the fuzzy inedible choke to cut out.
Beyond North America, mature artichokes are not the deal. Harvested while still small (and called “babies” in the world of artichoke enthusiasts), only a few of the outer leaves are inedibly woody, and there is no choke. Now we’ve got a versatile vegetable.
Actually, until this week, we did NOT have this versatile vegetable. No baby chokes in general commerce. But when I hit the produce section of my local supermarket, I found 8 packs of gorgeous little baby artichokes. For something like $3.50. Awesome.
Baby artichokes on the hoof.
I prepped ‘em by peeling off
the tough outer leaves.
Down to the beautiful and
tender leaf pack in the center.
Clipped off the outer skin and trimmed them of remaining tough spots. Then I drizzled ‘em with olive oil, added salt and pepper, and roasted them in a hot oven. When they were just about done, I stirred them around with four or five minced cloves of garlic. When the ‘chokes were done and the garlic cooked, I shredded on a big drift of parmesan cheese and served them up.
Roasted baby artichokes with
garlic and cheese. Fabulous.
