We are in spring artichoke season. I got a bunch of different types from Natoora: the choke-less Italian ‘mammole’ type, tiny little purple ones, large ones with deep spikes on the edge of each leaf. I prepped them all Roman style. Ideally you need a small curved knife – some Italian chefs get a paring knife and ask a knife sharpener to grind it down to almost a mini-machete such as below.
I just attended the Ladispoli artichoke festival where I ate fried artichokes for four days. Delicious. Artichauts à la Barigoule is a French, Provencale recipe, in which I used lots of different artichokes. If you only have the ones with the hairy choke, make sure you dig down and remove it. When prepped it should look like a rose.
