Hello! My name is Rebecca May Johnson, I am a writer and cook and this is my Substack. This week’s newsletter is about growing and eating artichokes, with a menu and a recipe, and my eating notes from the last two weeks.
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Artichoke season
It felt like I didn’t leave my chair for weeks as I worked to meet various deadlines, and every time I had a free moment to go to the allotment, it was raining. In between the rain, came the sun – and a sense of dread sprouted and grew, as I knew the weeds would be doing, too. When I finally got to the plot the grasses, wild barley, mallow, groundsel, hawkweed, and self-seeded chard had shot up and reached chest height. The path between my plot and my neighbour’s was almost impassable at several points as vegetation ceased to be able to support its great new heights and flopped rudely into his space. I panicked and cut down as much as I could with shears and an electric strimmer – my neighbour left me a voicemail about grasses last summer and I didn’t want to upset him again – and took some of the chard home to eat. As well as weeds, though, the artichoke plants are thriving. They like the often arid and windy slope of the allotment site, and each spring after the first year I planted them from seed (they begin producing in the second year) they have erupted into 6 by 8 foot monsters with over twenty edible buds per plant. The violetta variety have long sharp spikes at the end of their petals and as I reached over the plant, I felt a sharp pain in my arm and then saw blood; I wondered if violetta artichokes had ever been intentionally weaponised.
When I was at the plot again a few days ago a man with an allotment on the opposite side of the site leant over the fence and said he’d never seen artichokes on an allotment before (though actually there were several others on the site when I arrived three years ago). I said they do well here, they don’t mind that it’s often dry. I said I like to grow them as you can’t buy them in the shops round here and he said it didn’t seem like you get that much to eat for each plant. I said that can sometimes be true, but then pointed to one plant with around thirty buds. And afterwards I reflected how, despite the heap of debris I trim off before cooking them, I find artichokes quite rich and there is often much more to eat than I have anticipated. This was the case when I braised some to have as part of a meal that might be summarised as vegetarian buffet, and I was left with enough for another dish the next day (recipes below).
There are more artichokes than I can deal with (unless I do nothing else for several weeks), but I have picked a lot – and thanks to people on twitter for some excellent recipe ideas.
menu and recipes below
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