Artichokes
{tough exterior, tender heart and worth the effort}
Based on my recent trip to Rome, Naples and Sicily, where eating artichokes in one form or another is an everyday occurence, from the aperitif (Cynar, a delicious artichoke flavored bittersweet elixir over ice) to the appetizer, and from the soup (see the minestrone recipe accompanying this post) to the main dish, carciofi are plentiful and well-represented on menus throughout the parts of southern Italy I visited on a tasting tour that I led in January. Whether simply boiled in a flavorful court bouillon, grilled if small, or pared to their tender hearts and cooked quickly in a soup, artichokes were seemingly everywhere, protruding from prickly silvery grey plants in fields and kitchen gardens as far as the eye could see as we voyaged 1000 miles throughout the Lazio, Campania, and Sannio regions of mainland Italy and most of Sicily, the triangular island paradise which represents the toe of the boot.
