Artichokes

We use all three types of artichoke in the restaurant, sometimes all three together as in our Three Artichokes Salad. The globe artichoke (cynara cardunculus scolymus], Jerusalem artichoke (helianthus tuberosus) and Chinese artichoke or crosne (stachys sieboldii) are, in fact, perhaps only really related in flavour.

The globe artichoke is a Mediterranean variety of thistle in the sunflower family and it is actually the flower head that we eat. The Jerusalem artichoke, the tuber of a perennial sunflower, originated in America (where it is now often referred to as the sunchoke) and was first brought to Europe in the early 17th century and imported to Britain via Italy, probably under the name girasole articiocco meaning “sunflower artichoke”. It is thought that girasole got corrupted to “Jerusalem”, while the similarity of flavour to the artichoke gave it the second part of its name. The Chinese artichoke came to us only recently, late in the 19th century. Its other name, crosnes, is derived from the small town in France where they were first grown in Europe.