Artichoke
It is good for a man to eat thistles, and to remember that he is an ass. But an artichoke is the best of thistles, and the man who enjoys it has the satisfaction of feeling that he is an ass of taste. There are several elaborate ways of dressing the artichoke the Barigoule way and the Lyonnese way, for example, which have little to recommend them but their elaboration. Each is a mountain of labour for a mouse of result. The result is not bad; but it is always melancholy to see waste and in art especially the pleasure of it is destroyed when we are made Asparagus conscious of effort. The Barigoule and Lyonnese receipts are frantic attempts to paint the lily and to perfume the violet. When a great cook brings the whole battery of his kitchen to bear upon a simple artichoke bottom, one is reminded of Victor Hugo's comparison: "It is as if the Deity were to bombard a lettuce with a thunderbolt." Depend upon it that the simplest way of dressing the artichoke is the best. Trim it, boil it in salt and water, and let it be eaten with oil and vinegar, with English sauce or with Holland sauce. There is a special receipt for these sauces when served with vegetables. Some French cooks, before sending the artichoke to table, are careful to remove the choke, or as they call it, the hay. For this purpose the artichoke must either be allowed to cool, or must be dipped in cold water, and heated again after the removal of the hay-which might too vividly remind us how much we are asses. That hay in the artichoke certainly raises a delicate question, and it must be left to the good feeling of cooks whether they will or will not send it up to table.