In article , The Reid
writes
When I was in Tudela I had lovely stews of whole baby artichokes and
broad beans but when I tried it last night with golf ball sized ones
they are like fibre glass. I stewed for 40 minutes.

Whats wrong? Surely they cant water them more than me, Spains dry,
isnt it.

We never try to eat whole globes - the petals are almost always too
tough and fibrous for that - even at golf ball size. We wait until the
globe is mature enough to be ripe but not over-ripe. They need to be a
bit larger than a cricket or tennis ball. We pick the whole head, but
separate off the circle of fleshy pad at the base of the petals - that
is the artichoke (IOHO). If some of the larger petals appear to still
have an eatable amount of flesh on them, we cook those too then eat the
tender part off the base, but not the whole petal.
--
Alan & Joan Gould - North Lincs.