Cardon épineux genevois
A vegetable related to the artichoke, grown for its fleshy stalks, which are blanched away from the light before harvest. Protected by an AOP, it is served as a gratin, especially at Christmas.
In October, in the Geneva countryside, the cardoons look like bristling bushes, as tall as a person. The market gardener ties them up one by one, using pincers that keep the prickles at bay.
Origin
According to the Swiss PDO-PGI Association, it arrived with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes: in 1685, Protestants driven out of France settled in Plainpalais and sowed seeds they had taken with them. Culinary Heritage of Switzerland adds that some came from Touraine: the spiny cardoon of Tours is thought to be the origin of the Geneva plant. Market gardeners then kept the finest plants to sow again, until they had fixed the silvery spiny cardoon of Plainpalais. As early as 1749, a Bernese book gave a recipe for it.
Growing
A perennial, the plant is grown as an annual: it is sown late, in May, so that it does not flower. Then comes blanching: deprived of light for two to four weeks, the stalks lose their bitterness and become tender. For the first cardoons, each plant is wrapped in a black sleeve, out in the field; those for December, lifted with their root ball, go under polytunnels that are heated in case of frost; in the past, they went to the cellar. The people of Geneva are attached to these spines that prick in every direction: their cardoons are credited with more flavour and better-filled stalks.
At the table
A festive vegetable, it is eaten above all in the weeks around Christmas, alongside pear turnovers, the rissoles. The stalks are cooked in pieces in water and milk, so that they do not blacken, then baked as a gratin under a white sauce made with the cooking water and seasoned with nutmeg and cheese. The old recipe, with bone marrow, is becoming rarer. Its taste, close to that of artichoke, combines walnut, butter and a slight bitterness.
Today
In 2003, it became the country’s first vegetable protected by a designation of origin, Genève Terroir notes. The designation applies only to the local variety, grown and prepared in the canton. Geneva produced up to 300 tonnes a year before 1970, mainly for canneries; the last of them closed in 1998, and the remaining market gardeners joined forces to save their variety. At the end of 2015, ten farms were producing between 100 and 130 tonnes. Fresh, it can be found at the markets of Geneva and Vaud in December; in jars, all year round.
Sources: Culinary Heritage of Switzerland, entry “Cardon de Genève / Cardon épineux genevois (AOP)”; Swiss PDO-PGI Association, factsheet “Cardon épineux genevois AOP”; Genève Terroir, page “Légumes”.