Cardoon, 'Gobbo di Nizza'

Cardoons are a lesser known relative of artichokes that are most commonly grown for their thick fleshy leaf stems (think giant oversized celery but with the taste of an artichoke) rather than their flower buds. A tender perennial, they grow to about 4 feet in their vegetative state with flower stalks towering to over 8’. Native to the Mediterranean, cardoons are considered a specialty and prized in cuisines throughout the region. In Spain they are boiled and added to stews and sauces and are a staple of Christmas meals, in France they are used in gratins, in North Africa they are a common vegetable used in couscous dishes, and in Italy they are used to flavor Amari (bitter herbal liqueurs) and, raw, are the traditional accompaniment to the classic north Italian garlic/anchovy sauce bagna cauda (to name but a few uses of the beloved vegetable). Interestingly, the pistils of the flowers of cardoons are also widely used in Spain and Portugal as a primary source of vegetable rennet used in