Victor Sack wrote:
> jmcquown > wrote:
>
>> Oh, and I got some baby artichoke hearts. I very rarely see those!
>> They will be rinsed then dredged in sea salt and browned in olive
>> oil. I saw a woman (Polish, maybe?) do that on PBS on the show
>> 'Jewish Cooking with Joan Nathan' a few years back and man are they
>> tasty that way!
>
> That sounds a bit like a simplified version of the (still fairly
> simple) carciofi alla romana, so the woman was probably from Rome.
> However, this is a bit strange, as there are also the famous and
> rather more elaborate carciofi alla giudìa, also from Rome, which
> would be presumably more appropriate on a Jewish cooking show. In
> any case, any attempt to reproduce either dish outside of Italy and
> particularly of Rome would result in no more than an approximation,
> as the artichokes used are different. In Rome, it is the purplish
> cimaroli (top-growing), also called mammole (moms), grown mostly in
> Ladispoli near Rome (where a Sagra del Carciofo, a festival of
> artichokes, is celebrated every April) that are used for either dish.
> Moreover, only baby artichokes called figlioli (children) are
> supposed to be used for carciofi alla giudìa and even smaller
> specimens called nipoti (grandchildren) are used for carciofi alla
> romana. For both dishes, whole artichokes, just trimmed of the tough
> outer leaves, are used, not just hearts. The hearts, by the way, are
> not fuzzy at all. Also, carciofi alla romana are properly prepared
> with mentuccia, a kind of wild mint that grows only in the Rome
> region and has no counterpart anywhere else, as far as I know.
>
> Victor

Interesting, thanks Victor! Actually, I typed artichoke hearts but they are
whole artichokes, very small. Don't know what my fingers were thinking!

Jill