‘The blossom of the thistle’, as Modern scholar Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie refers to the artichoke in his book Les Paysans de Languedoc, is an extraordinary flower—a brilliant deep purple exploding its tentacular filaments like a giant sea anemone in the midst of bright green foliage.
Considered as an aphrodisiac tidbit in southeastern France, the artichoke was introduced to the United States in the 19th century to Louisiana by French immigrants, and to California by Spanish immigrants. The name has originated from the Arabic al-kharshof, through a northern Italian dialect word, articiocco.
Surprisingly, I found this royal burst of purple growing in my neighbor’s strip garden by the sidewalk. I had seen nothing like it—this gigantic, and exceptionally magnificent flower—that held me in a trance. I could not snap out of it.
pushpa macfarlane 