I once asked my young nieces, who had recently moved to California, what their favorite foods were. Once said “pizza.” The other said “artichokes.” Clever girl. I still do not understand why there is no nationwide chain of artichoke restaurants.
We recently revisited Castroville, the heart of artichoke culture in the US, as part of a regular program of reacquaintace with the vegetable.

Artichokes are from the Mediterrainian region and are popular in Spain, France, and Italy. In the United States, 75% of the artichokes are grown near Castroville, a small town near Monterey about two hours drive south of San Francisco. Castroville has an artichoke festival every May. The inescapable piece of trivia about the artichoke festival is that Marilyn Monroe was Miss Artichoke of 1948. They still sell postcards of Ms. Monroe looking charming while uncomfortably half buried in a bin of the course vegetables. In any case, if you have never met an artichoke face-to-face, Castroville is the place for that.

Artichokes grow year round in Castroville, with peak harvests in spring and fall. In the winter, you may see some artichokes for sale with dark spots from minor frost. That doesn’t hurt the flavor, so don’t be deterred by it. Last February I took pictures of a field ready for harvest. It’s difficult to pick out the chokes amid the the jumbled greenery.

The yellow flowers in the field are not from the artichokes, but rather from mustard. I don’t know why there is mustard mixed in this field, but farmers used to plant mustard in grape orchard to keep the weeds down. Maybe something like that is going on.

Artichokes are in the thistle family, and the individual plants are attractive. They are sometimes grown are decorative plants. The thistle flowers are a bright blue-violet.

There is no problem finding artichokes for sale in Castroville. Roadside stands sell the fresh vegetable. The iconic Giant Artichoke in Castroville has a restaurant selling … you guessed it.

I ordered up the Giant Artichoke Platter, which features artichoke bread, classic steamed artichokes, and fried chokes. Artichoke bread bears the same relationship to bread as carrots do to carrot cake: it’s good but you can’t taste the title ingredient. Steamed, or boiled artichokes, are usualy eaten with a side of mayonaise for dipping. Fried chokes are artichoke hearts dipped in a batter and deep fried. They are a real treat, and can be made at home using frozen artichoke hearts.

This is vegetarian plate, and while I am not regularly a vegetarian, I find that occasionally taking a break from my regular diet has a profound restorative effect that is quite valuable. It allows one to truly focus of the vegetableness of vegetables. Besides, my wife gave me a piece of her steak, and that helped a lot.

The fried chokes at the Giant Artichoke are good, but they have more than the optimum about of batter for my taste. It’s well worthwhile searching the coast for the optimum. If you make it to California, skip Disneyland and do that.

The easiest way to prepare artichokes is to slice off the top and boil them in an open pot for about 12 to 15 minutes. The leaves are picked off, dipped in mayo, and then scraped between the teeth to glean the edible veggie from the fibrous carrier. Don’t eat the mass of fibers in the center of the artichoke, the actual choke, which is obviously something you wouldn’t want to eat anyway. If the artichoke come with stems, slice them off and boil them up too. They are nearly as good as the globe.

Marinated artichokes are widely available and quite tasty, but they don’t capture the flavor of fresh-cooked. It’s like comparing dill pickles to cucumbers.

On the web, The Artichoke Store will get you started in artichoke culture. Simply Recipes provides pictorial eating instructions. The California Artichoke Advisory Board provides links to other web merchants, recipes, and information on the Artichoke Festival.