Artichokes are definitely vegetables. They are the edible flower buds of a type of thistle plant.
Artichokes, like other foods in the thistle group, provide fiber and polyphenols, which may help prevent arteriosclerosis, inflammation, and colon cancer.
Why are artichokes considered vegetables?
Artichokes are both eaten as a vegetable and used to flavor soups, sauces, stuffings, and pâtés. The strong leaves can be tough, so the fleshy base is usually harvested while the plant is still young.
Since artichokes are not botanically related to other foods that are customarily thought of as vegetables–such as lettuce or carrots – they should not be classified as such. However, they are generally treated like other vegetables for classification purposes.
The answers to the questions can be found right here.
Artichokes are actually flower buds of a plant called Globe Artichoke, which is of the thistle family. At one time, globe artichokes were common in Europe and North Africa but now they are grown mostly in California.
The entire edible portion of an artichoke is composed of flowers – including stems, leaves, and bracts. The small yellow bud that forms at the top point of the leaves contains the prized ‘heart’.
After removing all the tough parts around these little flavor-packed gems, it’s best to eat them raw or cooked in a variety of ways.
Artichokes are available year-round in most markets, but their peak season starts just before Lent and goes through May.
When purchasing fresh artichokes, look for ones that are compact; heavy for their size; firm; smooth; very dark green with no sign of bruising or wilting; and have tightly closed leaves – although not all will be tightly closed when they’re harvested.
The vegetable part of the question is much easier to answer than the fruit one! It’s not too surprising that meat comes from animals since people eat it every day – but where does fruit come from?
As soon as you say ‘fruit’ most people think about growing on trees like apples, oranges, and peaches – but fruits can come on all sorts of different plants.
To make it more difficult, some fruits are on trees, others on vines, and others still are bushes – including strawberries which grow on runners.
Artichokes are flower buds of the Globe Artichoke plant that is part of the thistle family.
The entire edible portion is composed of flowers which include stems, leaves, and bracts.
The small yellow bud that forms at the top contains the prized ‘heart’. After removing all tough parts around these little flavor-packed gems, they can be eaten raw or cooked in a variety of ways.
Artichokes are available year-round in most markets with their peak season starting just before Lent and going through May.
When purchasing fresh artichokes, look for ones that are compact; heavy for their size; firm; smooth; very dark green with no sign of bruising or wilting; and have tightly closed leaves.
The vegetable part is much easier to answer than the fruit one! It’s not surprising that meat comes from animals since people eat it every day – but where does fruit come from?
As soon as you say ‘fruit’ most people think about growing on trees like apples, oranges, and peaches – but fruits can come on all sorts of different plants. To make it more difficult, some fruits are on trees, others on vines, and others still are bushes – including strawberries which grow on runners.
- is a plant
- is a thistle family.
- is composed of flowers which include stems, leaves, and bracts.
Although artichoke is most often eaten as food for humans it can be used to feed animals such as rabbits or birds. Baby artichokes (artichoke hearts) are particularly sought-after delicacies in some countries because they consist entirely of immature flower buds.
For this reason, they can be more expensive than the larger ones at markets; however, their size means that fewer total pieces must be harvested to produce the same quantity of hearts (and the yield of less usable scrap).
Artichoke is a flowering plant. It is part of the Cynara genus, which comprises about 200 species of thistles native to the Mediterranean region and northwest Africa. The edible parts are the flower buds before the flowers come into bloom.
Along with stalks, bases, heads, and hearts, artichoke contains vitamins A, K, and some protein. Artichokes were thought to have anti-inflammatory properties by ancient Greek physicians because they contain cynarin.
The artichoke flower is large with showy purple petals surrounding numerous yellow disk florets inside; it looks similar to daisies on close inspection but without the serrated edges of other types of flowers in that family.
Artichoke is a flowering plant. It belongs to the thistle family and comprises about 200 species of thistles native to the Mediterranean region and northwest Africa. The edible parts are the flower buds before they bloom.
Artichokes contain vitamins A, K, and some protein. They also have anti-inflammatory properties because they contain cynarin.
Although artichoke is most often eaten as food for humans it can be used as feed for animals such as rabbits or birds too. Baby artichokes (artichoke hearts) are particularly sought-after delicacies in some countries because they consist entirely of immature flower buds and therefore costlier than larger ones at markets; however, their size means that fewer total pieces must be harvested to produce the same quantity of hearts (and the yield of less usable scrap).
The artichoke flower is large with showy purple petals surrounding numerous yellow disk florets inside; it looks similar to daisies on close inspection but without the serrated edges of other types of flowers in that family.
Artichoke is a vegetable that is part of the Cynara genus, which comprises about 200 species of thistles native to the Mediterranean region and northwest Africa.
The edible parts are the immature flower bud before they bloom. Indigenous to the Mediterranean area, artichokes vary in size from 10 centimeters (3.9 in) wide for ” violet de Provence” types to 30 centimeters (12 in) or more for “globe” types.
Although artichoke is most often eaten as food for humans, it can be used to feed animals such as rabbits or birds too.
Baby artichokes (artichoke hearts) are particularly sought-after delicacies in some countries because they consist entirely of immature flower buds and therefore costlier than larger ones at markets; however, their size means that fewer total pieces must be harvested to produce the same quantity of hearts (and the yield of less usable scrap).
Short history
Archaeological evidence dates back to at least the late Neolithic/early Bronze age. This means, in contrast to most modern vegetables, that artichokes are actually seen as a staple foodstuff rather than a recent invention or even byproduct.
They’re also very easy to grow and store well – which probably explains their popularity with civilizations across the world.
Over time, these various artichoke species evolved according to their regional climates. Thus they have become sufficiently different from one another that they can no longer successfully interbreed with each other.
At the same time however none of them have changed so much as to merit being split off into their own distinct genus, but this is exactly what has happened over the past few million years.
It turns out that this wasn’t a simple split. Rather, an artichoke became two different fruits in two different parts of the world, one from each pollinator-plant pair that were formed from this initial evolutionary divergence.
One fruit became a member of the genus Cynara, while the other belongs to the genus Arcus. In both cases, however, they’re still very closely related indeed, which means their fruits are easy to confuse with one another.
In fact, it’s hard for humans to tell them apart at all because we don’t have a fine enough sense of taste/smell/touch to do so. However for insects and other animals which possess these abilities, it is incredibly obvious – and yet no animal can actually decide whether fruit from one of these plants is edible, particularly when there are no other plants around.
This leads to a rather strange situation where if you try and eat a fruit from a plant which is named a Cynara, it’ll actually taste like an Aracus – and vice versa. This makes perfect sense because they both evolved from the same common ancestor, after all.
In fact, this isn’t even the only time that this phenomenon has happened – the “breadfruit” family also split into two groups to produce what’s now called Artocarpus altilis (the Akee ) and Artocarpus caimans; the former being closely related to jackfruit while the latter looks more like figs.
It’s not actually especially well known how these plants were named, but there are certainly various theories. Some linguists believe that the word “artichoke” derives from Arabic (rather than Greek), suggesting that the Romans might have picked up the plant name during their conquests in Northern Africa.
On the other hand, others think it may be a corruption of French for “thistle-foot” – because cardoons and artichokes both grow at the base of thistles.
Artichokes are technically fruits for the simple reason that they consist of the ripened ovaries of plants containing seeds.
This still leaves us with a problem though because although artichokes are technically fruits it would be very hard to argue that an artichoke is just eaten raw like many fruits just as it would be hard to argue that an “artichoke” is being cooked if you put one on your kitchen counter and left it out there for a few days.
The keyword here is “artichoke.” Unlike most other fruits, artichokes have characteristics that make them more comparable to vegetables. This leads to our final question: why?
A strong case can be made for either side of this argument. Many of the arguments for an artichoke being a fruit are based on it containing seeds while most of the arguments for artichokes being vegetables are based on them not necessarily requiring cooking before eating.
