2 THE VEGETABLE CULTIVATOR. 



The artichoke is principally cultivated in the 

 gardens of the higher classes, by whom it is much 

 esteemed; and it is considered more as a luxury than 

 a profitable esculent. 



* The heads, in their immature state, and before 

 the flowers open, are boiled in salted water, v till all 

 such parts of them become soft as are capable of 

 being so. The scales are then plucked off one by 

 one ; the lower part, or bottoms, as they are called, 

 are dipped in a mixture of melted butter, well sea- 

 soned, and the fleshy substance sucked from the 

 rest. But there is generally so little to be obtained, 

 as almost to justify the observation of a raw coun- 

 try servant, who, having waited at supper, when 

 artichokes made one of the dishes, was eager, on 

 his return into the kitchen, to taste a kind of food 

 which he had never seen before ; but, to his great 

 disappointment, finding little more than a kind of 

 horny substance, which equally defied his tongue 

 and his teeth, declared, with great naivete, that 

 gentlefolks seemed to him to have strange fancies, 

 for, as far as he could discover, one leaf would do 

 as well to lick up the butter as a thousand. 



On the Continent, artichokes are more generally 

 used than in England ; they are eaten by the French 

 and Italians in a raw state, as a salad, but are 

 preferred after having been boiled, and they form 

 a standing dish at a French breakfast. 



Artichoke bottoms are also dried in the sun for 

 winter use, forming an agreeable side dish through- 

 out that season. 



There are three varieties of the artichoke, but 



