Nick Maclaren wrote:
Those are clearly created by putting the taste of cardoons into a
cucumber. Having just tried my first cardoons, I have no desire
to repeat the experience. My wife's views are identical.

Even after blanching (both the deprival of light and preliminary
boiling), they remained as bitter as gall, and tasted much like
the stalks of globe artichokes.

OK, I'll own up. A friend induced me to watch the last of the
"Nobody's ever heard of me, so don't get me out of here just yet"
series. Some bloke called Paul (presumably a member of the Bay City
Rollers, or a daytime TV presenter) had to eat, among other things,
that fine specimen of my native flora, a puke-fruit; which apparently
puts live cockroaches (why didn't the silly bugger kill them forst?)
into perspective, and the Indian bitter gourd into the luxury
category. I had switched off by then, but it seems some other
anonymity actually won: Heaven knows what _he_ had to endure.

So consider yourself fortunate in your cardoons. There's often a
reason for foodstuffs to go out of fashion!

Mike.