Sanctuary from The Mad World
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch. - Orson Welles

Written in Dec 05.

Artichoke is a purple/green, thorny, flower-like vegetable.  I think its shape is more flower than a vegetable (but then again, grain and nuts are fruits.  Whadayaknow?).

Not a native Asian vegetable, I fell in love with artichoke in Canada.  I had always wondered what that strange thingy was until my roommate brought one home and taught me how to eat it.  Since then, I’m hooked to its sweet, cleansing flavour and aftertaste.

Whether steamed in microwave, boiled, grilled, or pickled, I eat them all.  However, to me, the best way to enjoy artichoke is to:
a.  steam it, wrapped in cling-wrap in the microwave, with butter, lemon, salt, and pepper for a leisurely, luxurious experience; or
b.  eat it as antipasti for quantity.

Eating whole artichoke is an experience akin to a good love-making:  patience and anticipation precede pleasure.  My ritual begins with microwaving the cling-wrapped artichoke for about 2.5 minutes and then the butter until it clarifies (about 1 minute).  I sprinkle a generous amount of lemon juice, salt, and pepper into the clarified butter.  I bring the two things to my dining table and set up the battle field:  a book propped properly for easy reading, a jug full of plain water, a glass, the bowl of butter mix, and the artichoke.  All are arranged within easy reach.

I start by peeling the petals, one at a time.  I dip the bottom, fleshy, white part of one petal into the butter, lemon, s&p mixture and gnaw from the hardest upper part, scraping the flesh downward with my teeth.  I slowly work my way in, encountering softer petals as I go along.  The taste is sweet with accompanied layers of buttery, salty, and spicy flavours.  That special artichoke flavour.

All that hard work is rewarded when I get to the middle:  a display of artichoke heart, covered at the centre with fuzzy, soft choke, waiting to be devoured.  I then coat the whole heart with the butter mixture and just immerse myself in the intense artichoke flavour.

To prolong the ecstasy, the next step is to pour myself two glasses of water:  as the water passes through my tongue and throat, the sweet flavour is carried through.  Only then, I sigh in relief.

There are other, more refined ways of eating artichoke but the one described above is my favourite.  Jamie Oliver has a step-by-step on how to clean and grill artichokes in his book:  The Naked Chef.  Artichoke makes excellent antipasti but the good one is hard to come by because unripe, too-small artichoke lacks the sweet and cleansing flavour.  It can also be eaten raw in salads.

Eating artichoke is, thank God, a private experience.  My sister scorn me:  they think I’m being cheated by paying so much for inedible leaves.  My husband thinks it doesn’t worth the effort:  he gives up the efforts of trying to cheat me out of my precious heart (artichoke that is), the only part he eats.  My friends simply say ‘yuck’.  No matter.  This is not the case of the more the merrier.

My college roommate believes artichoke is cooling:  the water from boiled artichoke is to be drunk like tea to cool down the heaty body.  A friend says artichoke is wine’s enemy.  For me, artichoke is one of life’s most precious treasures.