What is the purpose of an artichoke? It is nothing but a green pine cone. They taste alright but the time and effort to prepare one is a pain in the ass. And then, when you do cook one correctly it is nearly impossible to eat. It's worse than shellfish. At least with most crabs and lobsters there is enough meat to make it worth your time. But with the artichoke you just scrape the leaves with your teeth. What other food do you do that with? Then to top it all off, you have to dispose of the artichoke carcass. And I learned one thing this week, do not, I repeat, DO NOT ever put any part of an artichoke down a garbage disposal. If there is one thing in life that I can pass on to the rest of the human population is never, never, never, ever put an artichoke in your garbage disposal. My kitchen sink has been clogged for days now. I couldn't even use my dishwasher, all because of a damn artichoke. The artichoke actually got ground up and passed through my disposal but then all of its parts got caught in the pipe before the P trap. I don't think you can actually destroy an artichoke. NASA should look into the artichoke for uses in space.
Welcome to my World of Wonderment
Our planet is a neat place, full of weird and unusual people doing weird and unusual things. One oddball thing I like to do is geocache. What other activity is there that makes people travel hundreds of miles to climb a mountain, wade a river, and fight a Bigfoot, just to be the first person to sign a piece of paper rolled up in a 35mm film canister stuffed in the knot hole of a tree? I can't think of any other sport that has such a great mix of technology and the wonderful outdoors. A lot of geocaches are placed in a beautiful setting, or hidden in a challenging or unique way, or in a historical setting. Geocaching allows the finder to share in some of the hiders favorite places, and along the way you get to meet some interesting characters, and occasionally learn something new. While this blog is primarily a geocaching blog, I also use this place to post the occasional funny video or weird news story, or as a platform to rant or rave about something I really have to share. But for the most part this website is about you, the weirdo walking around in circles, talking into your GPS unit like it's a phone, pretending your taking pictures of a phone booth to find find the tiniest micro-cache, or circling your car around and around a light pole in a parking lot trying to retrieve a cache without even getting out of your car.
6/30/08
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Here Here!! Lets explore what an artichoke actually is.... a perennial thistle. A thistle. Now I don't believe humans are meant to digest thistles. Although I do recall from my childhood a donkey named Eeyore ate them. But come on a thistle with a name that includes Choke! I think that they are actually a diet trend that is mascarading as an edible delicacy. The time and effort it takes to prepare and ingest this morsal actually burns more calories than you consume. Haven't you ever heard of composting. It saves your garbage disposal!!
HaHa. I didn't realize it was thistle. Well no wonder it hosed up my plumbing.
Hey you two!
Did you know?
Everything You Ever Wanted to
Know About Artichokes Artichokes are originally from the Mediterranean. In fact, in ancient Greece and Rome, artichokes were considered something of an aphrodisiac.
This could be because, according to mythology, the artichoke started life as a beautiful Greek goddess Cynara who, after incurring the wrath of a Greek god, was turned into an artichoke.
Its scientific name is Cynara scolymus, which derives from the Latin for canine -- canina -- and the Greek for thistle -- skolymos. Its English name comes from the Arabic for thistle -- al-khurshuf -- which in turn becomes articiocco in Italian, the English translation of which is artichoke.
Given the above, you won't be surprised to learn that artichokes are related to the thistle. And, yes, we can confirm that picking these spiky little critters is not always fun!
The artichoke that we eat is actually the bud of the artichoke flower and the heart is eventually where the seeds develop.
Catherine De Midici, who married King Henry II, is thought to be responsible for popularizing artichokes in France. At a time when it was forbidden for women to eat vegetables because they were thought to contain aphrodisiac, Catherine ate Artichokes openly and plentifully. (Lucky old King Henry!)
Artichokes were first brought to North America in the nineteenth century -- by the French to Louisiana and by the Spanish and Italians to California, which has become the artichoke-growing capital of North America. Although we're doing our best to push Glen Valley up the rankings! ;)
They went on to become so popular that, in 1920s New York, artichokes were briefly banned by the mayor of New York following "artichoke wars" initiated by Ciro Terranova -- the "Artichoke King of New York"! (It's rumoured that the mayor lifted the ban a week or so later, because he enjoyed eating artichokes so much!)
Now, more and more varieties of artichokes are popping up all the time as this fascinating vegetable continues to be savoured worldwide.
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