San Luca Violet Artichoke

In the first half of the last century, the San Luca Artichoke was one of the main crops grown on the hillsides south of Bologna. Violet artichokes are also very common in the Romagna area, but their cultivation in the clayey soil of the Bolognese hills gives the San Luca Artichokes a fresh, herbaceous flavor, with notes of licorice root. The older generations remember how, thanks to these characteristics, the variety was once appreciated and known across the region, representing a significant source of pride—and income—for the local growers. With the depopulation of the countryside in the 1970s, this variety also began to be abandoned. These days, the farms that used to be home to the most productive artichoke fields have been turned into luxury residences with aesthetic rather than functional gardens.

The plant’s life cycle starts in September and runs until the following July. The artichoke plants like clayey soil with good drainage. The soil must be kept loose and aerated. Irrigation must be carefully managed, avoiding an excess of water particularly during the spring. Weeds cannot be controlled using chemical weedkillers. Usually the soil is fertilized twice, in the summer and the spring. The most prized artichokes are the primary and secondary heads, which are harvested between the middle of May and the middle of June. As with the majority of artichokes, reproduction is agamic, in other words not through seeds but using the many side shoots known as cardetti or carducci. Once removed, they can generate new plants. For this reason, the valuable preservation work of the local growers has maintained a product very similar to what was being cultivated in the last century.

San Luca Violet Artichokes can be eaten raw or briefly boiled and dressed with extra virgin olive oil and salt, but they can also be preserved in oil or turned in spreads and pâtés. The carducci, the extra shoots that are cut off from the plant in the autumn and early spring (during the scarducciatura), are also used in various products.

Season

Harvest between mid-May and mid-June, processed it is available all year round