Prickly about having to eat your vegetables? Might as well start with the thistle family – and a vegetable that really looks more like a flower. Artichokes (Cynara Scolymus) are one of the oldest foods around, originating in Africa and later around the Mediterranean. Greek legend has it that Zeus took to a beautiful mortal named Cynara, and transformed her into a Goddess. She longed to return home to our world and when she managed to sneak away she contracted his wrath: he turned her into an artichoke.

Early cultivation happened in North Africa in 800 A.D., and the Saracens introduced artichokes to Italy. The Arabic al-qarshuf — meaning “thistle” — became articiocco in Italian and eventually “artichoke” in English.

There was the mobster “Artichoke King”, so called because he dominated the produce rackets in NY. Some nifty historical photography here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYh8iWZeIDY

And of course we have an “Artichoke Queen” – the first, in 1948, no other than Marilyn Monroe (and I will remain silent on the rumors about aphrodisiacal effects of the plant.) http://montereypeninsula.blogspot.com/2008/11/marilyn-monroe-artichoke-queen.html. Personally I think trying to get food out of those leaves is just an excuse to eat a lot of butter.

Not the opinion of a former president’s wife, ruling the kitchen at Mount Vernon, however:

From Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery:

To Make an Harty Choak Pie

Take 12 harty choak bottoms yt are good & large, after you have boyled them, take them cleere from ye leaves & cores, season them with a little pepper & salt & lay them on a coffin of paste, with a pound of butter & ye marrow of 2 bones in bigg pieces, then close it up to set in ye oven, then put halfe a pound of sugar to halfe a pinte of verges [a sauce made with green herbs] & some powder of cinnamon and ginger – boyle these together & when ye pie is halfe baked put the liquor in & set it in ye oven againe till it be quite bak’d.

Here are two Dutch painters on the subject, 17th century Clara Peeters of Harlem (Breakfast Still Life) and contemporary Roman Reisinger (2006)