Boiled Italian artichokes
Cut off the stems, put the vegetables into boiling salted water, and boil for half-an-hour. Cut in half from top to bottom and serve half-an-one to each person. Pass with them a Hollandaise sauce. The stems are stripped off by the person eating the artichoke, the soft end dipped in the sauce and eaten. The fuzzy part should be scraped off and the bottom of the artichoke, which is really the most delicate portion, eaten with a fork.
Italian artichokes with sauce tartare
Remove the stems and outer leaves from the artichokes, and with a sharp knife remove the cores or centers. Lay these in cold, salted water for half-an-hour, drain and put into a saucepan with enough salted, boiling water to cover them. Cook until tender, drain thoroughly, put into a heated vegetable dish, and pour over them a sauce made of a half-cupful of melted butter, into which you have beaten a teaspoonful of lemon juice, a few drops of onion juice, a saltspoonful of French mustard, a pinch, each, of salt and paprika, and a teaspoonful of salad oil. Beat this sauce all together over the fire, remove from the range, and stir it, very slowly, into one beaten egg. Unless this is done gradually, the hot liquid will curdle the egg. Beat hard for a minute before pouring over the artichokes.
Fried Italian artichokes
Cut off the leaves and trim away the wool from the stalks. Cook tender, but not until broken, in salted water; drain and set on ice until perfectly cold. Make a good batter of half a cupful of flour sifted twice with a quarter teaspoonful of baking-powder and a little salt, wet up with half a cupful of milk into which has been beaten one egg.
Cut each artichoke, perpendicularly, into halves, sprinkle with salt and pepper, dip into the batter and fry in deep cottolene or other fat. Drain off every drop of fat and serve hot with a tart sauce.
BANANAS
Bananas sautés
Peel, cut lengthwise into thirds; roll in flour, slightly salted and peppered. Heat two tablespoonfuls of butter, or clarified dripping in a frying-pan; put in the bananas and fry to a golden brown, turning several times. Serve upon buttered toast.