DIGGING IT
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The cultivated artichoke, Cynara scolymus, is in the aster family, where it’s a member of the thistle tribe. Taxonomists took the genus name from an Aegean legend: the story goes that one day Zeus, the God of the Sky, was down on Earth visiting Poseidon, his brother the God of the Seas, when he spotted a lovely young woman bathing on the shore. Her name was Cynara. Zeus seduced her, made her a goddess, and
Rautio teaches a course for gardeners on “foodscaping,” or landscaping with plants that are both pleasing to the eye and edible. “There’s no rule that says you have to “We especially recommend plants with beautiful foliage, and that’s where artichokes come into play.”
Grow Them in Your Garden In their native Mediterranean climate, artichokes are perennials that can produce new buds year round. In the United States, virtually all the artichokes grown commercially come from California, where they Artichoke Queen of Castroville, California, the “Artichoke Center of the World.” But you don’t have to live in coastal California’s
Mediterranean climate to grow artichokes; they’ll thrive anywhere with mild winters, cool summers, and plenty of rain. New varieties—Imperial Star, Emerald Star, Colorado Star—have been bred to survive in colder climates. I’m giving them a try in my Pennsylvania garden right now! If you are growing from seed, Rautio cautions that the plants need an early spring cooling period—several weeks of temperatures
brought her to his home high on Mount Olympus. Although Cynara agreed to goddess status at first, she grew homesick and sneaked back to Earth to see her mother. When Zeus found out, his fury sparked. He threw Cynara out of heaven . . . and turned her into an artichoke. “Wait, what?! Why is that the appropriate fate
for a homesick girl?” Literary critics have varying explanations; the simplest is that artichoke buds, left unharvested, transform into show-stopping flowers that are as wildly beautiful as Cynara. But artichokes, like all members of the thistle family,
are well defended by spiky foliage. Even the edible buds are thorny! So perhaps Zeus was trying to protect Cynara even as he rejected her. Or maybe he wanted to be sure no one else would approach her. Then again, the myth’s resonance may come from
how the slow process of eating an artichoke—pull off a single leaf, dip it in oil, scrape it through your teeth for a tiny taste of flesh, then repeat, over and over, until at last you reach the succulent heart—evokes the lust that Zeus felt for Cynara. "The artichoke above all is the vegetable expression of civilized living, of the long view, of increasing delight through anticipation and crescendo,” as the English food writer Jane Grigson aptly said.
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