[Sca-cooks] More Artichoke/Cardoon

[David Friedman]

>Also sprach lilinah at earthlink.net:
>>According to
>>http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/book/chap6/artichoke.html
>>
>>"Cardoon (Cynara cardunculus L.) is similar to artichoke except 
>>that it is spiny and more robust. It is cultivated, on a much 
>>smaller scale than artichoke, for its edible root and thickened 
>>leafstalk. The inflorescence and pollination relationships are 
>>similar to artichoke (Bailey 1949*)."
>>
>>At a cooking workshop at Duke Cariadoc's some among us cooked 
>>cardoon leaves from His Grace's garden.
>>
>>But if that quote is true, one eats the roots (and possibly the 
>>stalk), not the leaves...
>>
>>Anyone with more experience care to comment?
>>--
>>Urtatim, formerly Anahita
>
>I'd say that the statement that one eats the leafstalks but not the 
>leaves is akin to the statement that one eats the leaf base and not 
>the leaf tips of a mature globe artichoke...
>
>Think of taking a globe artichoke and streee-eee-tching it until 
>it's as long as a head of celery, but otherwise fairly similar in 
>structure. That's your cardoon. You still eat the base of the leaves 
>(the leaf tips are fibrous and don't have much in the way of pulp) 
>and the "heart", which in the case of real cardoons, is part of the 
>root.

I do not believe that is correct.

A globe artichoke is a flower bud, not a bunch of leaves. A cardoon 
has chokes just like a globe artichoke--but they are tiny. What you 
eat are the leaves. The rib portion looks rather like celery. 
Artichokes have the same sort of leaves--a cardoon plant looks like 
an artichoke on steroids. My guess is that you could eat artichoke 
leaves--the rib near the base--too, although I haven't tried.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com