Before I was taught how at work, every time I've attempted to do anything with an artichoke, I've ended up with just a pile of leaves and bits. I imagined that they're a kind of bleak French existential joke for the rest of us. You know the one where at the end of our quest there is nothing. Not that socialist nihilism is doing them too badly according to Ahmed Bouzid [thanks Brian Bahnisch] . Although one has to ask if the assumptions are all wrong and France has insufficient teen pregnancy and too high maths skills to aspire to God's chosen free market. But I wander off. Artichokes are, in short, where one of the truck drivers in Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear reveals to us, just before he dies, that behind the fence was nothing. (Nearly the finest moment in cinema) And what was it that Kurtz saw before his death? What does one see in the darkness? And if we cannot see it, is it there? Let me light a candle, dressed like Dorothy Lamour, and show you where the centre lies.
First, make yourself a bowl of acidulted water with the juice of a lemon. This will stop the artichoke browning. Cut the stem of just as it begins to taper out to the base. Peel the stem back until the white is shown. Place it in the water.
Lop the top third off. A bread knife makes it easier.
Peel away some of the leaves and trim around the base to the white up to the part where it break up into individual leaves.
Slice the rest of the top off and use a teaspoon to to scrape out the fibrous centre that is the choke.
Trim the top. And tadah! Place it in the acidulated water and then do what you like with it. It's traditionally tasty boiled and the placed on a steak with a bernaise sauce.
Unrelated but quite important: Thanks to Sue and Saffy for pointing out I had a nice plug written for this blog in the Sydney Morning Herald. Hello if you've come from there. I'll share one part: "tempting recipes that go well beyond the basics" . Which is kind of true but I'd hate to think people had the impression that they were difficult. I suspect it may be a lack of clarity in the instructions – so if you aren't sure what I'm going on about, I'm always happy to explain further*. And cheers to whoever was responsible for the piece.
*assuming I know what I'm going on about.