First, a disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are exclusively mine, and should not be ascribed to any of my coworkers. Especially not the ones who gasp in horror every time I state my (thoughtful, reasoned) position that all artichoke hearts should be jarred.
Yes, all of them.
I say this as a perfectly normal fan of artichokes. I appreciate a meaty artichoke heart in a braise, and I can occasionally get down with a spinach-artichoke dip. And I will happily cook with artichokes. I just don't want to prep them.
Let's saya recipetells me to "bend back outer leaves until they snap off" until I reach the pale yellow leaves, and then "trim the dark green fibrous parts from base and sides with a sharp paring knife." What this recipe is asking me to do is to turn the artichoke (turningorparingbeing the technical terms for trimming an artichoke), a process of discarding 90 percent of the artichoke so as to end up only with the heart.
This is sometimes described as a meditative task, and I will admit that I am transfixed when I see people perform it. I am particularly charmed by this performance by Jacques Pepin, because, well, it's the adorable Jacque Pepin. And he makes the task look easy.
But it's not easy. Not at all. Artichokes are stubborn and prickly, and turning them is a bit like grabbling with a small cactus. Youwillprick yourself; youmightbleed all over the artichoke leaves. But if you do, it doesn't really matter, because you're going to rid the artichoke of all those leaves anyway, stripping away everything beautiful about it only to reveal its claylike, yellow-grey core. This process takes skills that most cooks do not get to practice very often. It takes time—roughly 10 minutes per artichoke, in my experience. And it is as demoralizing as vegetable cookery gets.
So no, I will not be bending back any leaves, because a fresh artichoke will never find its way into my kitchen to begin with. Why would it, when perfectly good artichoke hearts are offered to me in tins (not ideal), jars (good), and in the freezer aisle (also good)? These babies (and I mean that somewhat literally—sometimes you find artichoke hearts labeled as baby artichokes) are cheap. They are plentiful. And there is very little difference between it and the fresh stuff, especially if you're incorporating it into a dish.
This is where some of my fellow cooks really start to scream. Something about fresh artichokes being a "harbinger of spring" and having "far superior flavor" to the canned stuff.
这些东西可能是正确的。我不关心。This spring and every spring hereafter, I will ignore the recipes where artichokes take center stage (yes, believe it or not, I am not so animal that I would swap in frozen hearts in a recipe wherethe artichoke is the main event). And for all my other artichoke needs, I will buy them pre-prepped. You could try to sway me but it'd be useless. When it comes to prepping artichokes, my heart just isn't in it.
