When is artichoke season in california

Finally, squeeze the artichoke and listen for a squeak. That's a good sign. Here's the artichoke challenge: The fibrous outer leaves, while having a tender inner surface, are mostly inedible. No amount of cooking or steaming will make them fully digestible. The other factor is the inner thistle. An artichoke is a bud on its way to becoming a beautiful, but thorny, purple thistle flower.

Once the artichoke grows past the "baby" stage, its inner core begins to develop a hoary thistle. When you're trimming a medium to large artichoke to get access to the tender heart, you have to work inwards to find and remove that fuzzy center it sits right on top of the artichoke heart, the prize for all your effort.

When trimming an artichoke you're aiming at one of two results: One, to trim the outside of the artichoke so that it can be steamed or fried whole. I've provided a link to Elise Bauer's wonderful food blog, "Simply Recipes," that clearly demonstrates, with photos, how to do this.

The other result is to trim the bud down to the tender heart that can then be steamed, fried, or cooked whole or in pieces sliced or quartered and added to a salad or cooked recipe. The exception to all this is baby artichokes which are far more tender than full-grown ones.

This means that with just a little trimming and cleaning and removing a few outer leaves, the entire bud can be sliced or shredded, eaten raw or cooked.

Artichokes turn brown when exposed to air so before you cut, prepare a large bowl of cool water, big enough to take your finished pieces. Cut a whole lemon in half, squeeze the juice into the water, adding the juiced lemon halves into the water. San Luis Obispo County. Pinnacles National Park. Santa Barbara. Ventura County. Channel Islands National Park. California Welcome Centers in the Central Coast. Central Coast Tourism Council. Monterey County Beaches. Oxnard Salsa Festival.

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Courtesy of Monterey Peninsula Foundation. Castroville produces 95 percent of the nation's artichokes. In , Marilyn Monroe was crowned the town's first "Artichoke Queen. Central Coast Wine Country.

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Old-fashioned fun in the Golden State. Tai Power Seeff. A Danish stronghold makes a charming outpost surrounded by ranchlands and vineyards. Central Coast Missions. Surrounded by thousands of acres of silvery artichoke plants, the town pulls out all stops to celebrate its major crop in May with a 2-day festival. A native of the Mediterranean, the artichoke can be grown as a perennial or annual crop. It is a member of the thistle tribe of the sunflower Compositae family.

In full growth, the plant spreads to cover an area about six feet in diameter and reaches a height of three to four feet. Its long, arching, deeply serrated leaves give the plant a fern-like appearance. Historically, the Green Globe cultivar has accounted for most of the production but that has changed as new varieties have come into production and, as of , annuals have overtaken perennial production.

If allowed to flower, the blossoms measure up to seven inches in diameter and are a beautiful violet-blue color. The size of the bud depends upon where it is located on the plant. These are the ones you are most likely to see from the car during a springtime drive throughout the area.

Buds are smaller lower on the stem. The main propagation method for planting Green Globe artichokes is with root sections attached to basal stem pieces. The newer varieties, which are annuals, are grown from seeds that are nurtured in a greenhouse and transplanted as seedlings in the field.