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An Exclusive to MollieKatzen.Com
Dear Friends,
This month we have a guest here on the Kitchen Table Gazette: Andy Griffin, who, along with his wife Julia, farms delicious organic produce in Watsonville, California. Andy is a terrific writer as well as a dedicated farmer. I'm pleased he has permitted me to share his vision with you.
Yours In health,
Mollie
By Andy Griffin
Mariquita Farm
Organically Grown Vegetables, Berries and Herbs
P.O. Box 2065 Watsonville, CA 95077
(831)761-3226
www.mariquita.com
No Choke
 A freshly harvested artichoke is so turgid - and its thorny bracts are so
waxy and stiff - it will squeak if you squeeze it. Lift the artichoke to
your nose and inhale. The raw bud exudes a resinous, almost tarry aroma.
Cook the artichoke and you get a few bites of tender flesh that mix a mild
bitterness with an unusual sweetness. If you think the choke is the fuzzy
stuff you can't eat and any art is in the mayonnaise you dip the rest in
you're wrong. Let's brush up on our Arabic.
To the evangelizing armies of the Prophet who swept out of Africa in the
eighth century the artichoke was al-kharshuf. The prefix ëal' was the
definite article and kharshuf the name for the edible thistle Arab cooks
encouraged wherever they went. The soldiers of the star and crescent were
expelled but thousands of words lingered behind, somewhat mestizo for their
sojourn in Europe but of Arab descent none the less. In Spain farmers grew
the alcachofa, victorious Castillian for Al-kharshuf. In Sicily the aphetic
word carciofi remained to suggest that under the Califate life had been so
sweet that even the thistles tasted good.
Good food can travel where armies will never penetrate. Northern Italians
adopted Al-kharshuf warping its name to articiocco. Their francophone
neighbors to the north tasted the potential and called it artichaut. The
French learned to harvest the buds so young and tender that there were no
tufts of hairy down to swallow and the plant could even be eaten raw. Go
ahead, try it. Pick up a fresh young artichoke. Squeeze the bud and listen
to its squeak, then slice it thinly and toss raw into a salad dressed only
with a virgin olive oil, a little salt and fresh lemon juice. It tastes
great and that's no choke.
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Caveat Emptor
There are no wild artichokes but throughout the Mediterranean region where the earliest varieties were improved from spiny vicious proto chokes a large number of varieties are still cultivated. Here in the states we mostly know the large round cultivar called globe. There's a little bit of Texas in every American (except maybe you, of course) and the very largest artichokes are generally held to be the best. The buds are steamed or boiled and then the bracts are plucked off and used as vegetal shovels to convey mayonnaise to the mouth. There's nothing criminal in this but I want to be contrarian and to promote the idea that the artichoke is much more than a large olive drab dip delivery vehicle.
I grow the globes but I grow a teardrop shaped purple Sicilian variety too. Besides sporting wicked spines purple chokes also boasts a more assertive flavor. I like it. The spines on the older heirloom artichokes don't deter me. To the contrary, the pain I sometimes unwittingly inflict upon myself only wakes me up to the plants unusual mixture of sweet and bitter flavors that I find so addictive. Over the next month or two I will be bringing a *small* amount of small artichokes to market each week. I encourage you to try them but watch out for the spines. Also, be aware I use no insecticides, period! Artichokes are typically sprayed repeatedly against the artichokes plume moth. I manage my production using only biological systems. That means every once in a while you will encounter a wormy choke that I didn't catch in the harvest. I think that an occasional pest is a small price to pay for protecting our workers, our ecosystem, and ourselves. When I have learned to grow artichokes sustainably and economically I'd love to grow a lot of them, a veritable thistle zoo, with many different cultivars in my fields. Call this dream a work in progress. Oenophiliac artichokes have an unusual sugar that can make the best wines taste like they were poured from a tin can. -Andy
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