October 30, 2007

Recipe News: Lean to love the artichoke (+ recipe)

It's spring! Get up off the floor, stop hiding and get out into the garden. Artichokes are the edible, immature flowers of a cultivated thistle and they raise their heads in spring. They produce two crops a year so if you miss them now you'll catch them in autumn.
It's nothing short of miraculous that someone discovered you could actually eat the prickly, spiky things.

Jews introduced artichokes to northern Italy in the 16th century - and Catherine de Medici kindly took them to France when she married Henry 11.

You should buy artichokes as fresh as possible with tightly closed leaves. If the leaves are open, they're too old and will be bitter rather than mild and nutty. Artichokes are rather sensuous and tactile - they're best eaten with the fingers and you have to slowly undress them leaf by leaf, till you have revealed the hidden, inner heart. A person who goes from love affair to love affair is said to have a "heart like an artichoke", scattering leaves right and left.

Includes recipe for:

STUFFED ARTICHOKES

Full article here.