Artichoke Boycott
November 1, 2004
In general, I am not a very political person. I don’t really take a firm stand on issues. I did, however, stage a personal boycott of the artichoke for years in the mid 90s. This was not an idle stand. I did not come to this resolution without reason. I had experienced the artichoke – stood up to it, fought with it, lost the battle, rose again to challenge it, struggled, seen it hurt those close to me, and to what end? Having lost one French paring knife, and with blackened, blistered and sometimes bleeding hands, I ended up with what? I’d withered away the leaves from a vegetable the size of my hand and was left with the small, pale green inside of the artichoke – the heart. All that work for such a small pay off. It doesn’t have an outrageous or even notable flavour. Tossed in a salad or into a casserole, it even seems to get a little lost. Was it really worth the effort?
My experience with artichokes, and the eventual reason for the boycott started in France.
I was working at two restaurants in Provence, and Artichauts Barigoules was a standard menu item. Traditionally, Artichauts Barigoules is a stuffed artichoke dish, but these restaurants prepared a deconstructed salad version of the classic. We had to trim the artichokes down and cook the hearts. Then we cut the hearts into wedges and presented them on a plate with greens, endive spears, brunoise peppers and carrots and drizzled it all with a dressing. While the main burden of the dish fell on the garde manger station, everyone chipped in to help prep the artichokes. No-one was allowed to do this during service period because the offending vegetable leaves not only a black stain that works its way permanently into the creases of your skin, but also a bitter taste on your hands that will transfer to whatever else you happen to touch. On the garde manger station then, every salad we prepared would be bitter if we’d prepped artichokes at the same time. I was already anxious about the technique required to turn an artichoke, but having the time restriction on this prep put even more pressure on the task at hand. So, a group of us would stand around a large garbage can and trim away the leaves, starting at the stem base and work our way around the artichoke. Some of the cooks, the senior line cooks who rarely worked the garde manger station anymore, were very proficient at the job. We would stand around the garbage can and leaves would be flying everywhere. It was almost thrilling. Thrilling until you tried, as a novice, to keep up.
The artichoke is a member of the thistle family. In keeping with the family, the leaves of the artichoke all end with a sharp point. This is what kills you when you’re in the thick of the preparation. The leaves are thick and firmly attached to the base of the artichoke. It is not easy to cut them off. It takes practice to learn how to hold the artichoke, what angle to use with your paring knife, how to turn the vegetable while you cut the leaves in order to be most efficient. Your knife must be very sharp. If it is sharp, then the proper angle will allow the leaves to fall just by turning the artichoke into the blade. It’s an acquired skill, and it was no surprise that the senior cooks were the best at it. When finally finished, we would throw out huge garbage bags of the leaves, and we tossed the hearts into another bucket filled with water and squeezed lemon halves to keep them from browning. Rubbing the lemon juice on your hands before turning the artichokes was one way to help prevent the black stain and bitter taste, but only if you’ve managed not to cut yourself with the leaves the previous day.
We went through cases and cases of artichokes every couple of days in those restaurants, so improvement in technique was inevitable. That didn’t save my friend Christophe, however, and it was the incident with Christophe that finally inspired my personal boycott. Christophe was nice, calm, quiet, generous and kind. He didn’t deserve what he got. These things don’t matter in a kitchen in France, however. You see, Christophe got caught. He was doing his prep before service and the chef went through Christophe’s garbage can. This is quite a common occurrence in French kitchens. I’ve even heard of situations where line cooks have their own small garbage cans and the main garbage can is locked up. They have to go through the Chef to get the key for the main garbage before they throw anything away. The Chef goes through the garbage of each line cook to make sure that they are not throwing away food needlessly, not wasting. That’s how the Chef can control his food cost and food yield. It may lower the food cost, but it also lowers morale. On this occasion, the Chef went through Christophe’s garbage and found too much waste. Christophe was not warned; he was punished – eight cases of artichokes on his own. It took him three afternoon breaks to get the job done. Paring each artichoke while we were all instructed to stay away and not help him. His hands bled and were wrecked for days. We all looked at his hands in horror at the end of each afternoon. We could see him gingerly pick up a glass to drink from at lunchtime. He didn’t complain. He was angry, I could tell, but he didn’t utter a word. Another word might have meant another case of artichokes. That was when the decision was made. That was it! I was boycotting artichokes. They were a stupid vegetable that required too much work, at the expense of your hands, for too little pay off. Done!
My parents thought I was crazy, but I was adamant. I did my best to convince them to join my crusade, but I had no takers. I stuck to my guns for a few years, but have softened with old age. I’ve forgiven the artichoke. I just haven’t forgiven that Chef.