This morning, the market stalls were heaped with those big, fat, round artichokes from Brittany. Artichokes are the most exquisite things you can eat. They need to be served simply so that their taste is not masked. I think the Norman way is best. You snap off the stalks, steam or boil them until a test leaf comes away easily, then eat them with hot cream, the torn-off leaves dipped in one by one, and the heart, or bottom, mashed up in what's left. Normandy cream is thick, yellowish, slightly salty and sour; artichokes offer a good excuse for eating it in quantity. The discarded leaves, we children were instructed, had to be arranged in a neat ruff around the edge of one's soup plate; no chucking them into a communal bowl.
In Rome one Easter, in my late twenties, I discovered Italian ways of cooking artichokes. It was a revelation made all the more poignant because I was in the throes of a miserable love affair from which I had not yet found the courage to tear myself away. I ate artichokes alla siciliana, the stuffing packed down among the leaves; the roast lamb forming the centrepiece of this Easter lunch was as nothing by comparison. Another day,
I tried carciofi alla giudia: deep-fried in oil, they opened out like
sunflowers, crisp and crackling and golden. I understood how these dishes were possible when, roaming the street markets, I saw the stalls heaped with long-stemmed, greeny-violet thistle-like plants, and realised that these small, delicate artichokes were completely different from the ones I had been used to. Having stripped off a couple of layers of leaves, you could subsequently eat the whole thing.
All those Italian recipes for artichokes braised in white wine just do not work with the large, green variety. However long the stewing process, you end up with a mouthful of tough leaf you have to spit out. So when I'm in France or England I serve them boiled with the classic sauces: cream, vinaigrette, butter and lemon, or the delicious Turkish tarator, made with walnuts. If you love artichokes so much that you want to eat them, in season, as often as possible, you can ring the changes by making them, once cooked, into cup shapes, the choke scraped out and a ring of outer leaves left to hold the filling in place. Elizabeth David, in Summer Cooking, and Jane Grigson, in her Vegetable Book, both offer good recipes. My favourite consists of a spoonful or two of mayonnaise mixed with broad bean puree and prawns. For a classic French recipe, consult Edouard de Pomiane's Cooking With Pomiane, published by the incomparable Serif press. Artichauts a la barigoule are wrapped in rashers of bacon, stuffed with a mixture of minced ham, onion, breadcrumbs and white wine, and simmered in tomato sauce. Guaranteed to make anyone forget an unhappy love affair.
