- Notes from For Love of the Table
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- The Foods of "Almost Spring"
Cooking during that unsettled moment between winter and spring
As a Midwesterner, I am used to the crazy up and down weather swings of late winter. One day it’s snowing…the next it’s sunny and in the 60s (or 70s!). I always feel sorry for the plants and animals that are just trying to survive…or decide when to come out of their winter hibernation.
This sweet little bouquet of the first daffodils seems a bit early…but maybe not?
One of the difficult things about the weather ups and downs of early March is preparing food that feels right. I’m not yet hungry for the light, bright foods of spring…but I’m tired of the roots, greens, dried beans and squashes of winter. Fortunately, there are some “almost spring” foods that bridge the gap nicely, going equally well into a dish that will be appropriate for a cold blustery day…or a dish that will fill the bill on a warm, sunny one. Not surprisingly, these foods begin to appear right around the time I’m ready for them
Fresh Artichokes: they are worth the effort…
The new crop of artichokes from California always catches me by surprise. They appear while it’s still winter—sometime in late February or early March (when I’m not really thinking about spring food yet). But when they arrive, they make a splash: they take up a lot of space…and savvy produce managers know to put them out on a hard-to-miss display (often in uniform rows, stems plunged into a mound of crushed ice). When I see them, I always try to grab one or two, even though I wasn’t planning for them. They will keep a while in a plastic bag in the crisper drawer…and I want to enjoy them before they have had a chance to languish on the store shelf (where, out and exposed to the air, they will dry out and become tough).
A lovely purple one I happened to pick up this year (it cooks and tastes the same as the green ones).
Most people’s exposure to artichokes is from the canned variety (marinated or not). Generally these are artichoke “hearts”—which is the central core (inner leaves, undeveloped “choke,” and stem) of baby artichokes. The large, fresh “Globe” artichokes that you spot in the stores in late winter and into spring are prized for the “bottoms.” The choke of these specimens has developed into a fuzzy and/or thorny and inedible thistle…and the edible base has grown into a thick, succulent disk. This disk (or bottom) is what you eat when you cook a globe artichoke. In very fresh artichokes, part of the stem and some of the inner leaves will still be tender and edible. You can actually purchase canned artichoke bottoms…although they are not as common (and I admit I have never used them).
I mention all of this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, canned artichokes are vastly inferior to fresh. They actually don’t really taste very much like artichoke. Their most pronounced quality is a sharp acidity from the canning process. The marinated ones at least have some flavor added back in…but they still don’t taste much like an artichoke. Worse, some of the tough and chewy inner leaves always make it through the canning process. If you consume canned artichokes often, you likely don’t even notice these chewy bits…it’s just the way they are.
The second reason I mention it is that enticing people into the adventure that is trimming a globe artichoke down to its bottom is a hard sell. Trimming an artichoke requires some dexterity with a paring knife…and produces a mountain of vegetable detritus: bits of stem, large leaves, possibly some thorns…and fuzz. But I’m here to tell you that they are worth it.
