To get it at its best you must pick it off the vine and eat it on the spot, without any condiment. It is good in a score of ways—stewed, grilled, as a catsup, even canned—but for table use it is most desirable in the salad bowl, alone or in combination with escarole or lettuce.
It ought to be needless to add that it is much pleasanter to eat, and more digestible, if it is peeled (which is easily done after soaking it a moment in hot water) before slicing; but few cooks will take this extra trouble, slight though it is, unless specially requested.
If we can perhaps give even the French points on tomatoes, they have much to teach us regarding another vegetable which is among salads what diamond-back terrapin and canvasback duck are among meats—the globe artichoke.
Fortunately, unlike turtles and wild ducks, this noble plant is yearly becoming more abundant in our markets. It would be as much in demand as tomatoes were its flavor equally known and the samples on sale as tempting as those served in Paris and London. It is for the consumer to insist on having the best varieties sent from abroad and cultivated at home; but the dealers on their part ought to be alive to the fact that the way to increase sales is to offer the best at the lowest price.
The French artichoke makes a savory vegetable, served hot; but how any one can eat it—or asparagus—hot, when he might have it cold as a salad, with French dressing, is a mystery to me. Of course, it must be boiled, except when very young and tender.
To get the artichoke at its best one must ask for it in a first-class Paris restaurant. The waiter brings a huge specimen in a large plate, removes the inedible "choke" in the center with a movement like that of a dextrous carver (French waiters receive prizes for skill in carving), and there it lies in all its fragrant magnificence.
Rossini objected to the turkey as being a bird too large for one and not large enough for two. Time and again in Paris I have had placed before me an artichoke big enough for two; and since my partner prefers the scales and I the fond, we were both happy though married.
As the scaly leaves of the artichoke must be dipped into the dressing and sucked, it is not for persons who object to using their fingers except to hold knife and fork, any more than are crawfish, or olives, or peaches.
The Moors of Morocco prefer to use their hands for conveying food to the mouth, because, as they sensibly maintain, they know that their hands have been thoroughly cleaned, whereas knife and fork may have been washed carelessly.