Foodlore Library

Morellino Artichoke

Recently, while attending a wedding in Chicago, I was chatting with my two female cousins during the cocktail hour portion of the event. We teetered in our high heels while trying to gracefully balance champagne glasses, various passed hour d’oeuvres and cocktail napkins in our hands.

We ate leaning forward in that typical, “I don’t want to spill anything on my silk dress- at least before dinner starts,” kind of way. As usual I was failing, and already had some sort of smear down my front. But, it was all in the name of good eating, so I wasn’t too bothered.

Suddenly a waitress passed close by holding a tray of round toasts topped with artichoke slices. My eyes lit up and I dove for the tray, only to find myself entangled by cousins. They had made similar monkey-like leaps towards the waitress, who backed away slowly, her eyes cast downwards in embarrassment for us.

“Artichokes are my favorite food.” The taller of my cousins stated, lifting her chin high, in the face of our food frenzy.

“Mine too!” I exclaimed at the same moment as my other cousin.

“My sister’s too!” I added full of enthusiasm. We stood around grinning at each other as if we’d just discovered we were all related to George Washington. Were artichokes in our genes?

Since the wedding I have been thinking about the effect artichokes have had on me, and the many ways they have woven themselves into my journey, and into my heart. No pun intended.

We stood around grinning at each other as if we’d just discovered we were all related to George Washington. Were artichokes in our genes?

I can’t remember a time in my life when artichokes weren’t both my favorite food and my sister's. In fact, one of our earliest home videos is a shaky shot of both of us sitting at the kitchen table slurping down melted butter and scraping leaves with our barely-grown teeth.

Artichokes were the way my mom got us through anything unpleasant. I’d be at the dentist having a cavity filled, or on the way to school for a big test, and my mom would squeeze my hand and say, “Don’t worry kitten, we can have artichokes tonight.” I would grin and bear whatever kind of pain without another complaint.

My mother was a decorative painter, and made many stencils. One of them was an artichoke which she added to our t-shirts and even to our green bunkbeds. Birthdays were always full of artichokes, and if I ever spotted them on a menu at a restaurant than that was my new favorite place.

When I was twenty-two I moved to Florence, Italy, to begin culinary school. It was September and it would take me another month to realize I had just landed in artichoke heaven.

My then-boyfriend (now husband) and I were grocery shopping when I suddenly came upon a pile of artichokes so high they were beyond my reach. I gaped at the pile while my husband pulled out a clusters of seven artichokes tied together at the stems by a rubber band. He acted as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

“Good,” he said, “artichoke season has begun.”

I questioned him excitedly about artichoke season for the rest of the shopping trip. He explained that the season lasted from October until May, with the height of the season coming in January and February when the morellini artichokes would be best.

“Those ones you can eat raw,” he said with that twinkle in his eye he often gets when he thinks of something delicious. “Raw?” I thought. That sounded strange.

After the shopping trip I began to notice artichokes everywhere: popping up on menus in all the restaurants. We learned how to make artichoke risotto in school, my husband brought home bunches of them like bouquets of flowers, and while working as an intern in a Florentine restaurant I became immersed in them. My job most days was to clean hundreds by pulling off the outer leaves, chopping off the tops, slicing them open and scooping out the hair. My hands soon bore the marks of a true aficionado: scarred with tiny lines and brown around the nails.

I decided during my first artichoke season that I better learn more about my favorite food and its apparent love affair with Italian cuisine. The green plant, which is actually a white vegetable, grows wild in Italy and has been a staple here since the time of the Romans when it was considered to be a food of the nobles.

There are three types of artichokes; globe, Jerusalem, and Chinese. Globes are the most popular in the western world, and over fifty varieties can be found.

My next step was to try the very variety my husband had first bragged about. We waited patiently for morellini to make their appearance. My husband found some at a local vegetable store in our small town. He set about preparing them in two ways. I watched, fascinated, as he sliced then into thin strips and tossed then in olive oil and lemon before layering them over a bed of arugula, and grating an aged ricotta cheese over top. The others he simply put on the plate as they were, and added a bit of balsamic to olive oil to be used as a dip.

“Pinzimonio,” he said with a grin. Piziamonio is the Italian equivalent to crudités. Raw vegetables served with just olive oil and a sprinkle of salt, or sometimes with a shot of balsamic vinegar.

We sat down at the table and began to munch on the raw artichokes. I had expected them to be extremely bitter, but the taste was light and refreshing. The texture was soft, yet crunchy. I fell in love with artichokes all over again.

Over the last few artichoke seasons in Italy I have come to appreciate the thorny vegetable even more. I learn more and more ways to prepare them: sautéed with mint, battered and deep fried, used in salad, pickled, pureed in soup, slow fried in olive oil, stuffed with many things; the possibilities seem endless and the prospects make me smile.

Sometimes life in Italy can be a bit unfamiliar, or even lonely. But, there are always artichokes to take me back to my childhood, and back to my family. They connect me to my cousins, sister, parents, my new husband, and my two countries.

I just bought some artichokes this morning. My husband is out tonight, which means I don’t have to get too creative with the cooking. A bit of melted butter, a squeeze of lemon, and one slide of the teeth to take me down that back down that path of my artichoke life.

Fiona grew up in Chestnut Hill, a small suburb of Philadelphia. She attended Rollins College in Florida where she majored in anthropology with a minor in writing and fine art. After college she moved to Florence, Italy, to study culinary arts. When the two-year program was through she married a Florentine taxi driver, and they now reside in a house in the hills of Tuscany, about forty-five minutes from Florence. Fiona is currently sous chef at La Sosta del Gusto, a restaurant that serves updated Tuscan cuisine.