Artichoke Anatomy

The Heart

I grew up savoring vegetables because of Ema. As a vegetarian, she insisted that her veggie dishes never sit politely as a side, but eloquently speak for themselves. Beet salad with an arugula base, eggplant topped with honey and goat cheese, and zucchini layered lasagna were all household delicacies. However, there was nothing I loved more than my mother’s artichoke. Perhaps what made it special was its simple preparation: a single glide of the knife to remove the vegetable’s thorny crown, followed by a 45 minute boil. She would then make two dipping sauces, one being the juice of a freshly squeezed lemon, the other a blend of seeded dijon mustard and mayo. Artichoke would appear on the table for every little occasion, such as straight A’s, birthdays, and Shabbat dinners. With an artichoke placed upon it, my plate became a swirling volute, generating and propelling my life.

My parents were born and raised in Rockland County, New York. They were high school sweethearts, on and off through college. Eventually the couple moved to Israel, where my father served as a paratrooper and my mother worked for the Jerusalem Post. After six years (and a wedding facing the Jerusalem skyline), circumstances drew my parents back to the US, one of which being my father’s desire to receive a master’s degree in viticulture and enology. He began studying at Fresno State in 2002, and in May 2005, had his first and only daughter. Meanwhile, my mother worked as a graphic designer, though she enjoyed tangible mediums as well. Just as I completed kindergarten, we upgraded from our dreary rental and purchased a sunny, yellow home. Ema was immediately putting paintbrush to canvas, conjuring abstractions of her favorite places to hang perpendicularly to our new front door.

Both my parents loved to keep their hands busy. When Aba wasn’t at the winery or on his desktop, he was in the kitchen. My father absorbed his culinary skillset from undergraduate courses in hospitality. He never shied away from an extra sprinkle of paprika or splash of olive oil to enhance flavor. He also insisted that time is an essential ingredient of every dish. Whenever Aba made challah, the dough would sit out for hours to rise both before and after being shaped. I love challah as an intersection of food and art. I was taught how to braid challah before I knew how to braid my own hair. The under-over motions ebb through me, and so does the spiral pull-apart of an artichoke. I do not remember the first time my parents and I sat around our kitchen table, each undertaking the globe, rapidly contributing to the pile of discarded bracts. Artichoke is a vegetable that takes effort. It requires the labor of both hands and the lower jaw to even graze at its quiddity. A special intimacy exists in conversation interwoven with unfastening, scraping, and relinquishing every layer of artichoke, until all impedimenta is placed in the center of the table, and a soft heart is pulsing on each plate. 

The Stem

A facet of my childhood was accompanying Aba on vineyard visits across California. I became thoroughly familiar with the highways leaving the Central Valley, and with the varieties of crops grown beside the road. Aba would quiz me constantly. Are these pistachios or almonds? Clementines or lemons? Lettuce or kale? On our way to a plot in Salinas, we passed endless fields dabbed with purple and brushstroked with green. “Look Maya, these are where your artichokes come from.” 

However, Central Coast farm to Central Valley table only sits at the end of the story. Artichokes originate from western Mediterranean and North African domains. They were incipiently enjoyed for their spiny leaves, rather than the bud of the immature flower that we cherish today. In ancient Rome, the archaic artichoke was an adoration of the noble and wealthy. Artichokes lost popularity after the fall of the Roman empire, but continued to be cultivated by Arabs, who eventually brought them to Spain. Artichokes reappeared in Italy during the Renaissance period, having now developed its modern, spherical flower head. It wasn’t long until the thistle gained traction in France as well. 

Around the same time, Spanish settlers began introducing artichokes to the California coast, as the mild, foggy climate allowed for the cultivation of a taste of home. However, the California artichoke only became a thriving industry decades after the arrival of Italian immigrants in the late 1800s. By 1910, artichokes were shipped to Italian communities on the East Coast, and by 1920, the town of Castroville was supplying the United States with two thirds of its artichokes. Today, California grows nearly 100% of the artichokes that appear in supermarkets across the nation. 

The Outer Bracts

On drives home, I would slump in the backseat while my father played Hebrew CDs. He sang along with ease while I choked on velar fricatives. Fresno has a Jewish population of 0.4%, so a large portion of my Jewish and Israeli identity felt insulated in our home. However, my parents did a phenomenal job of nurturing Jewish joy, rather than buckling into our otherness. We had Shabbat dinner each Friday night, and we committed ourselves to the spirit of every holiday. Judaism just so happens to demand food-centric tradition, although my parents have added their own flair. Apple turnip soup on Rosh HaShanah, roasted root vegetables on Passover, and homemade cheesecake on Shavuot represents Jewish prosperity through a story of flavors. From slavery in Egypt to the Holocaust, a pride in our peoplehood has always existed, despite all odds. Judaism is a dichotomy of the most vanquishing sorrows and uproarious jubilations. We take this in stride. To summarize the lion’s share of Jewish holidays, there’s a saying that goes, “they tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat!” 

“We need to eat to survive,” voiced Roman Jews. In 1555, Pope Paulus IV issued Cum Nimis Absurdum, walling Jews into a seven acre (0.01 square mile) ghetto. Over 300 years, the ghetto’s population rose to 8,000 as Jews continued to lose more of their rights, such as the attainability of many ingredients in their living quarters. However, Sephardic Jews exiled from the Iberian Peninsula had just reintroduced artichokes to Italy. Non-Jewish Italians were intimidated by the prickly thistle, and therefore artichokes were allocated for the Jews. They had to be creative in how they prepared these vegetables, minding kashrut while making the most of their limited ingredients. Taking inspiration from Roman fried food, Carciofi alla Giudia (which translates to Jewish-style artichokes) became a staple in the ghetto. Carciofi alla Giudia requires few components as a double-deep-fried artichoke, sometimes garnished with lemon and salt. The dish immediately became a sensation across all of Rome. The ghetto was liberated in 1888 and today, Carciofi alla Giudia is a representation of Jewish tenacity at a dire time. 

The Inner Bracts

Half a century later, Jews across Europe were faced with the horrors of the Holocaust. A multitude of miracles allowed for all of my great grandparents to enter the United States by the 1930s. My dad’s side came from Germany and Poland, and my mom’s side from Russia, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Their beginnings in the US weren't easy, and my parents were the first generation to not grow up at poverty’s whim. Despite the hardships of relocating and entering new livelihoods, my great grandparents valued the continuation of our Jewish tradition. 

A way they brought this to forethought was through their diet. I come from a lineage of kosher kitchens, though with various levels of rigidity. In the sun-flooded kitchen where I grew up, my family only ate certified kosher meats, never mixed meat and dairy, and had separate dishes for meat and dairy meals. Since moving out, I’ve made a home in other kitchens, but have opted to observe kashrut just the same. I choose to keep kosher for its nod to my identity, its religious implications, and its guidelines to consume healthily and ethically. 

The Leaves

Although my parents observed kashrut, their childhood menus looked much different than mine. Aba recalls a plentitude of carbs paired with soggy, overcooked vegetables – typical American home cuisine during the 70s-80s. His parents didn’t invest in a microwave until later, so his meals were prepared in the oven or on the stovetop. He grew up with broccoli, carrots, potatoes, celery, green peppers, and robust American cucumbers. He reports never seeing an avocado, eggplant, or mushroom at home, never mind an artichoke. In young adulthood, Aba worked in restaurants and participated in the Food and Beverage program at Rockland Community College. “I started bringing home these ‘strange’ vegetables to my parents house. They started to use them but it was problematic because my parents had an aversion to onions and garlic and all these vegetables are complemented by them. My parents, being very Ashkenazi, cooked everything in either corn oil or margarine, and there were very few herbs and spices,” he humorously recounts. 

Ema delineates a similar familiarity of produce in her childhood kitchen. She describes steamed frozen vegetables, string beans, and potatoes. She emphasizes the waxiness of the American cucumber, as well as her nostalgia for spitting out black watermelon seeds. Ema also mentions her parents’ love for making traditional Ashkenazi dishes. Matzah ball soup and cinnamon egg-noodle kugel were childhood staples, but she especially enjoyed my Pop-Pop’s matzah brie during Passover. At age 13, my mother made the choice to be vegetarian. For protein, she leaned on beans, especially chickpeas. “It starts with chickpeas and ends in bliss,” she proclaims. 

The Choke

My parents broke out culinarily when they lived together in Jerusalem. They frequented Shuk Machane Yehuda, Jerusalem’s renowned outdoor market, purchasing uncharted produce and spices to experiment with at home. Persimmons, figs, and avocados added fresh new flavors, while cumin and za’atar enhanced the dishes they already loved. My parents shared their first artichoke at a friend’s apartment in 1997. They took more interest in the fibrous thistle after noticing the vibrant purple blooms of wild varieties among the countryside during a shmita year  (Sabbatical year in which the land lies fallow). 

The Bible notes that when Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden, God vowed to make the real world much more toilsome than their verdant paradise. Instead of fertile soil, Adam and Eve found themselves tending rocky, unyielding ground. According to Genesis 2:18, God told Adam that the ground would only spout kotz v’dardar (thorns and thistles), making food not impossible, but effortful to grow. It is only fitting that Jewish tradition recalls this tough flora as artichokes, a plant that has remained persistent since the creation of woman and man. 

The Talmud describes an abundance of artichokes throughout the Land of Israel in ancient times. They grew wild in the Galilee, but a cultivated alteration called kinras were commonly gathered as a food source. Today, the native wild species are still found across the country, as well as Globe and Violetto artichokes as modern cultivated varieties. It is mentioned in the Talmud that several rabbinic sages enjoyed kinras at their dinner tables. However, the labor that went into the harvest and preparation of the vegetable is emphasized. 

Artichokes are a complex gyre representing Jewish tradition and history. While the thistle challenges those who harvest, cook, and consume its contents, it has provided the Jewish people with nourishment for centuries. As the Romans forced Jews out of Israel upon destroying the Second Temple in 70 CE, then later the Bar Kokhba Revolt by 135 CE, the artichoke became a symbol of resilience in the diaspora. Tough outer bracts conceal the sharp pain of struggle and loss. However, the protective choke is thin compared to the heart – pride, tradition, song, peoplehood, and togetherness. 

The artichoke originated in the Mediterranean, and eventually spread westward to California. It paralleled the path of my ancestral and generational lineage. Finally, my parents returned to Israel, relishing in the sweet and nutty notes of the native vegetable, embracing the flavor of home, and later, infusing it into my Golden State upbringing. 

Bless you Adonai, ruler of the universe, who creates the fruits of the ground.

ברוך אתה אדוני אלוהינו מלך העולם בורא פרי האדמה.

Cynarine

My tiny fingers dance around the artichoke. I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve, but I am face-to-face with a vegetable that protects it at all costs. I take a swig of water, and it is sweet. Little do I know about cynarine, a compound that exists within the premature blossom that inhibits the sweet flavor receptors on my tongue. Whatever next greets the backside of my teeth reawakens my taste buds, as if steeped in sucrose or coated in honey. This is the secret of the artichoke; it shares its magic with everything else. Sunlight streaming into our yellow kitchen illuminates cherished memories of learning to cook and bake. Since then, I have exchanged recipes, including the simple boiled artichoke, with all the people I’ve come to love. 

How wonderful it was to grow up nestled between the artichoke leaves, deriving sweetness from every word exchanged over steamy bites. How miraculous it was to grow up nestled between the artichoke leaves, sanctioned to live softly, to divulge every fiber of my heart.