Spring on a plate

It may be true to say that I love artichokes. Growing up I didn't have them that often, but it was a rare treat when I did. Sometime in the late Spring large artichokes would turn up on sale in a few select shops. Occasionally, they would already have been prepared for consumption: decorated with a thin slice of lemon and a few sprigs of curly parsley.

We would sit down for dinner in front of the beautiful artichokes and peel off leaf after shiny leaf. They would be dipped into a sharp vinaigrette and we would bite off that half moon of edible flesh at the base of each leaf before discarding it into a bowl placed in the centre of the table. As the meal progressed the mountain of leaves took shape.

Of course, we were all intent on reaching the soft heart of the artichoke - a reward for all the work it had taken to get there. We would remove the inedible choke and carefully slice the heart and dip it into the vinaigrette relishing each delectable morsel.

So when I got to Rome and saw the artichokes on the market and in the grocery shops I was in for a disappointment. They were smaller and punnier looking than in my memory. The largest, the mammole, fat round globes looked half the size of my childhood artichokes. As for the violet, with their thin oval shape and their sharp spines, they looked too dangerous to touch.

The carciofini, mini artichokes, were a joke. What was there to even eat on them? Whatever could they be used for?

In Rome there are three dishes which feature the artichoke as the star: the 'carciofi alla giudia', the 'carciofi alla romana' and the 'vignarola alla Romana'.

The first involves bashing and deep frying the artichoke. As a typical Jewish dish it can be found all over the Roman ghetto.

I still remember the first time I tasted 'carciofi alla giudia' at a teachers' meeting in a school on Lungotevere Ripa.

I would teach early evening lessons there with one of the most beautiful views I've ever had in a school. The windows were set high above the roaring road that ran alongside the Tiber. Of an evening, I could look out across the river and glimpse  the Church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin with its distinctive bell tower and its Bocca della Verita (the mouth of truth) still open to all and free in those days. There were also some ancient Roman temples part of the Foro Boario. A little higher up the river if I was by the window I could spy the broken bridge (Ponte Rotto) with gulls perched on it and circling and crying above it. As the sun set pink over the city I couldn't imagine anywhere nicer to be.

Sadly, the school closed a year later. But my memory of the artichokes remained.

A mountain of artichokes at my local market

The battered globe with leaves invitingly parted, lightly salted and fried to a crisp were a sensory revelation. They needed no accompaniment they were perfect as such.

I discovered 'Carciofi alla Romana' at a trattoria behind the Colosseum. I should have trusted my imstincts and avoided it. No good can come of a trattoria catering almost solely to tourists.

In my defence, the place had been chosen by my dining companion. She had read a review in a popular guide book which lauded among other things its 'carciofi alla Romana'.

So I ordered them. An oil drenched braised artichoke stuffed with herbs arrived. My friend offered a "that doesn't look very nice," type comment, as I bit into the over-cooked bud. An assault of flavours hit my palate. It tasted strange and vaguely medicinal. I smelt something minty. Was this really the famed Carciofi alla Romana?

I drank from my white wine and noticed its taste had changed. I didn't know it then but it was the chemical constituent cynarine which is found in artichokes that was distorting my taste receptors.

When my desert, a soggy tiramisu soaked in a blue liquid arrived, I decided never ever to pay attention to restaurant recommendations from budget travel guide books again.

But even though it had been a far from perfect first try it had aroused my curiosity. The bizarre flavour had come from the combination of spearmint (mentuccia)  not in fact a genuine ingredient for this recipe with olive oil,rather than the more usual mint,parsley and garlic which are used to stuff the braised artichoke. 

I subsequently tried a much better, more genuine preparation containing the right herbs at a ristorante, (the event being a Christmas dinner) La Matriciana on Piazza dei Consuli  down in the concrete jungle of the Tuscolana. Here the artichokes glistened with a film of olive oil but were firm rather than pulpy and held their combined herbs well. It wasn't cloying or greasy.

Artichokes have proven health benefits:

they can cleanse the liver as well as help

lower cholesterol.

It also inspired me to give it a try: I would make my own 'carciofi alla Romana'.

What I hadn't realised was just how difficult artichokes are to clean with their hidden sharp edges and spines nor their tendancy to go brown due to the oxidising effect of the air.  Hence the use of a water bowl filled with lemon quarters or a drop of vinegar into which to pop the newly cleaned and ready for preparation artichokes.

I understood better why so many markets sold ready cleaned artichokes bobbing merrily in large plastic vats of water and lemon. I understood why the normally parsimonious Romans were happy to pay a little more to avoid the tedium of cleaning them.


With a little practise I got there. I've never quite figured out how to stop them from capsizing in the pan, their bell heads spilling their contents in a less than tidy way into the surrounding water.  They never look quite as perfect as the ones sold in reaturants but I'm sure they're as tasty!

No other dish, however, conjures Spring to mind better than the 'Vignarola'. A vegetable stew made up of spring onions, artichokes, broad beans and fresh peas. Some recipes also throw in Roman lettuce to braise and the first seasonal asparagus.The presence of all these ingredients on the market are a sign that the warm Summer days are but a skip and a jump away.

                        A recipe for Spring on a plate

Vignarola alla Romana:

• Fresh (or frozen) peas 500gr,  podded and cleaned
• Fresh broad beans 500gr, podded and cleaned
• 1 head of Roman lettuce, sliced
• 100gr pancetta, cut into cubes
• 500gr artichokes (3 artichokes), cleaned and cut into quarters or sixths
• 250gr Spring onions, thinly sliced
• Olive oil
• Vegetable broth (this can be made from the pea, bean pods boiled with the green shoots of the spring onion) or water
• Pecorino cheese
• A sprig of mint
• salt and pepper

Fry together the spring onions and pancetta.Add the prepared artichokes with a little vegetable broth or water. Cover and cook for 10 minutes. Add the peas and beans and some more broth. Cover and cook for a further 10 mins.Then add the sliced lettuce and cook till all the vegetables are ready.Season with salt, pepper, mint and pecorino cheese.

The origins of this dish are unclear. It may have been called Vignarola because the vegetables grew among the vines,;or it was a dish eaten by the peasants who cultivated the vines; or, more simply it was named after the people who sold them on the Roman markets, the vignaroli. Whatever the dishes origins, it was surely a rustic dish, a reminder of the bounty the earth can produce.