How to Eat an Artichoke

It is intimidating to be confronted for the first time with a steaming artichoke on your plate.  Most vegetables don’t need an instruction manual to figure out how to eat them, but artichokes are an exception.  So, how can you get to the tasty bits (and boy, are they tasty)? 

First, it is important to realize that not all of the Artichoke is actually edible:  quite a bit of it is too fibrous to chew, swallow, and digest.  The parts that you need to avoid are the outsides of the green leaf-like bracts surrounding the flower, and perhaps most importantly the spiny flower bud nestled inside of the artichoke itself (it’s called the ‘choke’ for a good reason!).

Think of eating an artichoke as the same process as opening a present.  You’ll start with a bud that has been steamed long enough so that the outer bracts are easily pulled off the stem.  Now pull off a bract one at a time, working around the artichoke in a circle.  Traditionally, when you remove a bract you’ll dip it in melted butter.  But for the vegans out there warm olive oil infused with garlic or a balsamic vinaigrette works well, too.  Then hold the top of the bract with your fingers, put it into your mouth with the outer surface facing up, close your teeth, and pull the bract out of your mouth.  The delicious soft pulp will be left piled up behind your lower teeth.   Eventually, you’ll get far enough into the flower bud that the entire bottom of the bract will be soft and edible:  when you get there simply dip the ends in the butter / oil and nibble off the bits that are not woody.  You’ll want some kind of container to collect all the discarded bracts; eating an artichoke makes for lots of good compost material.

Finally you will have removed all the bracts.  At this point you’ll see the fleshy, green ‘heart’ topped by a prickly flower bud.  You’ll want to take a spoon and carefully lift the prickly flower bits off the heart, and put this ‘choke’ into the waste container with the discarded bracts.  What remains is the succulent flower base, which you should dip in butter or oil and eat with unabashed joy.

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