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Question

I'm familiar with eating barely-trimmed, steamed artichokes by hand, leaf by leaf, but not with eating them prepared like this. If all the tough parts are gone, can you eat the whole artichoke? Do you eat them with knife and fork? And do you think this would work well with baby artichokes?

Smaug · Answer

Actually pretty typical behavior for an inflorescence- a good example is cluster roses, which will typically will have a larger central flower that opens first, then some smaller subsidiaries; for cut flowers, one typically removes either the subsidiaries- for one large flower- or the central flower, for a stronger cluster- wonder if that would work on an artichoke.  All I have is a long abandoned plant that still comes up every year (30 years later), but it's lucky if it produces one tiny choke before the gophers find it.

Nancy · Answer

Have been eating artichokes forever, and never knew there were no baby ones. I learned something today! Thanks, HalfPint.

HalfPint · Answer

Yes, you can eat the whole trimmed choke, with or without knife and fork. I prefer these types of artichokes with knife and fork, less messy.

Yes, theses would work with baby (small) artichokes. Here's the thing about artichokes (provided to me by the "Artichoke Queen", a sweet little lady who was the spokesperson for the Artichoke Council in Castroville, CA):

There really isn't such a thing as a baby artichoke (that's all marketing). On a mature plant, there are a number of different sized artichokes depending on their locations on the plant stalk. The ones on the top are the largest and the ones on the bottom are the smallest. Those small ones will never get any larger than their size at harvest time/maturity. All the artichokes on the same plant are the same age. So their tenderness will be relatively the same. That being said, I would stick with the larger artichokes since you will have to, theoretically, trim off the same parts. And if you start with a really small artichoke, you'll end up with a really small choke to eat. It can be a total pain to trim those small ones.

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