Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
And, as if these weren't enough oddities for one plant, the artichoke comes in many
different sizes. In season the so-called baby artichokes can be one of the best buys in the
produce department. These are actually fully mature chokes that are harvested from ex-
actly the same plants as the big boys at exactly the same time. An artichoke plant sends
up many flower stalks, some as tall as six feet. One or two of them will yield the large,
steamer-size buds (weighing a pound or more apiece). Maybe half a dozen of them will
be medium-size chokes (two or three to a pound). And then there will be a scad of smal-
ler ones (roughly a dozen to a pound). Because most shoppers are interested in artichokes
only for steaming, these smaller ones are tough to sell. Most of them go to canning, but
many of them wind up in the produce aisle, where they're sold cheap to savvy cooks who
know their true value.
W H E R E THEY'RE GROWN: Almost all of the artichokes in the United States
are grown in California, most of them within fifteen miles of a small town called Castro-
ville. There have been recurring efforts to expand the plantings to other areas in order to
expand the season, but they have met with only mixed success.
H O W T O C H O O S E: Artichokes are one of the tougher vegetables; they'll last
quite a while with only minimal care. Still, choose the ones that seem heaviest for their
size and that don't have any visible damage. You don't have to be too picky about this:
the cut stems will, of course, be blackened already. And if there are a few dark spots, they
won't affect the flavor. The industry has come up with the marketing term "frost-kissed"
for this kind of damage and claims that it makes the hearts sweeter. Perhaps, but it cer-
tainly doesn't hurt them any. You can tell really fresh artichokes because their leaves will
squeak when you rub them together.
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