Saturday, April 28, 2012

The nobbliest tenderest artichoke

My computer is making me lazy - or addling my brain, I'm not sure which.


I was writing an article today about Jerusalem artichokes when I described them as knobbly. After I'd written it I had to check in the dictionary to make sure it did begin with k. It does but probably won't for long now we have text speak and Nobby's Nuts.


Then I suggested eating only the most tender leaves of the globe artichoke - go on, ask me anything you want to know about artichokes -  and thought it didn't sound quite right. I changed it to tenderest and the spellchecker didn't object so left it at that. For a while. Then I consulted Mr Chambers who assured me there was no such word.


I've always prided myself on my grammar and spelling (as long as there are no double letters); if that is going to be taken away from me what will I have left?

3 comments:

Katney said...

I grew up with globe artichokes in the yard and we had them regularly through their season. I love them, but yes, eat from the tenderest most tender leaves. The outer ones can go because they have very little edible "meat" on them. I use scissors to snip the prickly part before cooking and cook them with some oil and vinegar in the water. They always want to float at the top of the boiling pot and not get all the way cooked, so I might put either a dinner plate on top of them to hold them down, or the lid from the next smaller pot. I like them hot with butter. Hubby prefers mayo. Ranch dressing is nice, too, and they aren't bad chilled after cooking.

A friend once cooked one artichoke and served it at a gathering of at least a dozen people. There were other appetizers, but still--What was everyone else going to eat? For us it is a meal. One artichoke apiece, with maybe some pasta or rice as a side. Everyone gets a big bowl to toss the leaves when the good part is scraped or bitten off.

It is one of the things DD#1 mentioned when she told me she was glad that we introduce them to (made them eat?) lots of different foods when they were kids. She had to specify as I was standing there with my mouth agape. She was the world's pickiest eater.

Hubby is out and about and carrying the grocery list. I think I will call him and suggest he see if there are any good artichokes.

nick said...

Well, if there isn't a word tenderest then there ought to be. It sounds quite okay. If you ask me, banning it is just linguistic correctness gone mad.

Liz Hinds said...

No, I can't see the fuss about artichokes, katney. Didn't enjoy them very much.

Now I'm wondering if I missed it in the dictionary, nick. It does sound sort of right.