Miles Collins

How to grow and cook cardoons

I must confess to a chequered past when it comes to growing the noble cardoon. Cynara cardunculus (Latin for pain in the arse) has caused me considerable grief since I introduced it to my kitchen garden, I originally grew them as an ornamental/edible border which would serve as a means of sheltering my more delicate sowings from the turbulent weather during the summer winter months.

This, I told myself was a stroke of genius and I duly poured love and affection over the tender young plants. As they grew I watered and watched, watched and watered and back again until I felt seasick. Did this work? In a word, no. The more I cared the more they died and so, in the interests of horticultural science, I gave up. For the first year the lucky ones remained little more than a large green plant, time for a transplant I told myself. I picked out the best of the best and moved them to an all new and improved site. They died.

Yesterday I waded through the mass of asparagus fern to stumble across a long forgotten cardoon plant, healthy as you like, uncared for, ill-treated and abused by every English weather system you can imagine. The result, a strong and healthy cardoon! This little fellow shall be ‘blanched’ in the autumn and by that I mean wrapping and tying the stems just below the leaves with some newspaper or polythene in the same way as celery are treated. The blanching process takes up to a month and can be left in situ until needed. If anyone has dealt with an artichoke before then treat a cut cardoon in the same way because they will discolour quite rapidly.

They are worth growing for a visual border if nothing else, you can slice them thinly and use in an endive salad but they do not compare to the artichoke.