Oven-roasted artichokes

During our supper club meal on Tuesday, I sat next to a woman who grew up in Rome. We got to talking about Italian artichokes and signed very dramatically (also, accurately) over the fact that you simply cannot get in America, the small, tender chokes that abound in Italy. Both of us desperately wish we could. 

I've written about this before, my adoration of Italian artichokes and my sorrow over having to make do with American Globes which never really cut the butter. 

But, when spring comes and fresh artichokes with plump stems can be found, we who long for their continental brethren make do as best we can.

The woman from Rome told me about spending a recent Easter there. Artichokes were everywhere, and she ate barrels of them. Carciofi alla giudia ("Jewish style") which is a deep-fried artichoke and originated in Rome's Jewish community, and a version of carciofi alla romana, hers braised in olive oil rather than steamed in water and wine.

Last night, I peered into my crisper drawer and pulled out the two enormous chokes I'd bought a few days prior. I got out a sharp knife and a serrated spoon, the better to trim the spiky leaf tips and clear the thistly hair from the heart. I set up an acidulated water bath so that before the denuded hearts could brown, I could dunk them into a lemony pool. And I got out my heavy Lodge and a big vat of olive oil.

I picked some mint and basil and chives and parsley from my garden and chopped them fine. Mixed them with crumbled feta and pressed garlic and salt and pepper. Took a deep breath because my god did that concoction smell heavenly. And then I stuffed half into each cored out artichoke and sealed them up tightly once more and put them stem up in a shallow pool of olive oil that I'd poured into my Lodge.

After a couple hours in the oven, regularly basted with oil, these beauties emerged, and I ate one today for lunch.

I ate it while standing up, leaning over the bowl which sat on my cutting board, and I closed my eyes and gently gripped each leaf between fingers and teeth and pulled. Ever so slowly to get just the tender knob of chokey flesh from the end, and of course I saved the best for last which is the heart.

It was perfectly cooked; al dente, really. Its herby feta hood paired scrumptiously with the heart's earthiness, and I savored each bite.

Not an Italian choke, but prepared like one made it suffice just fine.

Carciofi: they just don't grow 'em here like they do in Italy

Every year, when "baby" artichoke season comes around, I get excited. I think, "maybe this year, they'll be tender and fresh and all I expect in a young, just-plucked veggie." What I'm really thinking is, "maybe these will taste like those I eat in Italy." People, let me just be candid. You canNOT, unless you grow them yourself, get artichokes in the U.S. like those you find in Italia. Most of that issue is type. Here, in the U.S., farmers predominantly grow the California Green Globe varietal. You know it! It's big, green, is great for steaming, and if you get to the heart, yee-ha, you've reached a delicious, albeit initially hirsute, prize.

But, if you want to eat fresh artichokes raw, the Globe is definitely not for you. If you want a tender young thing whose leaves you can chiffonade and stir into a risotto or pasta, do not think you can successfully complete that plan with a Globe. They are way too fibrous, hairy and tough for such delicate intentions.

The current "babies" available in our region are simply small Globes. I have finally come to accept this, although admittedly, it took a final attempt at fritto misto today to recognized the Globe's limitations. For pinsimonio (the wonderful Tuscan appetizer of fresh, raw veggies cut and dipped into salted olive oil) and that risotto I mentioned (and once made and nearly choked [hah, 'choked' on]), nothing I've been able to get in the States comes remotely close to a win.

Looking at these, you might think, as did I, surely something so small and sweet will be tender. Size and ease-of-chew definitely seem to correlate, but again, not with i carciofi. Sigh.

I trimmed, acidulated, placed gently into a hell-hot cast-iron pan studded with garlic and accessorized with thinly shaved lemons, delicate halves of these artichokes. I showered them with salt and Parmesan when they emerged, steamy hot and golden-burned on both sides, from the pan. The flavors were there, but the texture was not. Sad, readers, sad.

And as if it were fated, I then made the most underwhelming quesadillas ever, since that crappy batch on Superbowl night. Note to self: Em, you suck at quesadillas!

PS- An interesting article on artichoke varieties is available from Saveur, here.