Best Way To Cook and Eat Artichokes.
Looking for a new way to eat artichokes? Katie Honan did Bon Appetit readers a solid with her article on the origin of the Artichoke Parm Hero. The lifelong New Yorker who claims she has tried “all the Italian parm sandwiches in the five boroughs” journeyed to an obscure shop in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn in search of a sub she had never previously encountered, let alone tasted. Intent to find the origin of the “tart, herby sandwich” sold at Mama Louisa’s Hero Shop, she launched an investigation which puts to shame our own research into the history of Guss’ pickles.
The current owner of Mama Louisa’s is an immigrant from Ecuador who apprenticed in Italian pastry shops and opened several Italian restaurants; at one of these the previous owners were customers and offered to sell their shop to him. The new owner, Edgar Lunavictoria, kept everything the same, including the artichoke parm hero. So Honan tracked down Franco and Louisa Conigliaro, they former owners who had sold him the shop, and found that they in turn had purchased from the Punzone family. More sleuthing led her to a grandson of Charlie Punzone, who had come up with the sandwich back in the days when the neighborhood was known as Pigtown after the hogs from nearby farms in the still rural area. Honan’s article includes many fond memories of Charlie who was apparently a legend in the area.
But to put it in perspective, Mama Louisa’s Hero Shop is hardly a household name. The store has 81 reviews currently on Yelp, and most don’t mention the artichoke parm hero. (Most of those who do mention it said they tried the sandwich because of Honan’s article.) By comparison, Grimaldi’s Pizzeria on the other side of town has 5.1K reviews.
Could it be that not all that many people (present company excluded, of course) are into eating artichokes? After all, you have to throw away most of the thistle (that’s what it is botanically speaking) in order to eat it. You can prick your finger dealing with the sharp points on the outer leaves (though many of today’s products seem to be genetically modified to grow with curved-in spikes). Scooping out the hair-like inner leaves to get to the heart is, frankly, yucky. And handling artichokes can give you a dose of cynarin that makes other foods (even water) taste sweeter or, in my experience, gives the artichoke a bitter undertone. (Cynarin is also a natural oxidant that lowers cholesterol and improves bile production. But we’re here for the food, not our health.)
What do artichokes taste like? Google’s AI tells us the hearts have a mild, nutty taste somewhere between asparagus and celery. But to me it’s more about the texture. It’s a tactile experience to dip a trimmed outer leaf into melted butter or aioli and gnaw at the leaf to get at the meat like a beast in the jungle. And eating the heart involves peeling through the layers with your teeth and tongue, an unusual gastronomic exercise (though not unique; eating hearts of palm is a similar experience which is why we often enjoy them together).
My formative cooking years were spent around big fat artichokes grown in California’s Central Valley and sold at an economical price in any supermarket. Occasionally baby artichokes would show up in farmers’ markets and that was a real treat because you could simply trim the stem, sauté the whole artichoke in olive oil, and eat it in two or three bites as you might consume a spear of asparagus or a green bean.
By the way, our own artichoke parm recipe is here. And here is the best way to cook and eat artichokes (and you get to eat the stem). And here is a very nice artichoke pasta recipe that uses frozen, unmarinated artichokes from the supermarket.
