[Sca-cooks] Cardoons vs. artichokes

[David Friedman]

>
>What's really confusing for me is that my Sicilian grandmother 
>interchangeably used "artichoke" and "cardoon" to refer to the 
>globe-style vegetable we are familiar with. But with cardoons, you 
>eat the stems, not the bracts.
>
>Gianotta

The cardoon plant looks like an artichoke on steroids--similar 
configuration, but a bigger and more vigorous plant. It has flower 
buds that are miniatures of the usual globe artichoke. You can cook 
them and eat them like artichokes--my kids thought they were cute 
when we did so--but there isn't much on them other than the heart. So 
it isn't surprising to have the same word used for both--to think of 
them as two variants of the same basic plant.

Anyone in the SF bay area who is interested is welcome to come by 
here next spring--I have both cardoons and artichokes growing.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com