And can’t imagine dunking a fat leaf in dressing, clenching it between the teeth, and pulling it out to scrape off the edible pulp.
If they’ve eaten it, it was the only picked hearts. What does the cannery do with all the perfectly good food on the leaves?
That’s how I ate them when I was a kid but have also been surprised at how few people I’ve met in my life that actually ate them that way.
A whole artichoke and a gin & tonic = The Perfect Meal
I was eating artichokes with friends, years and years ago. I love them, and they’re my sister’s favourite food, but one of our friends had never had them. When he found the fluffy heart, we quickly told him not to eat it. But being the curious joker that he is, he insisted he wanted to try. He ate the whole fluffy bit. Apparently it is “not very nice”. Just in case you were wondering.
Spending a lot of time around Castroville, CA, the Artichoke Capital of the World, the thought of folks not knowing how to eat one is inconceivable. You stop by a roadside stand and buy some that are bigger than softballs for cheap. Boil 'em forever and dunk the leaves in melted butter with garlic and bread crumbs. Yay.
I’m not sure I understand the OP. What makes you think “a lot of people” don’t eat artichokes? Is there any reason to think it’s less than the number of people who eat Pineapples or Razor Clams?
I love the taste but it just seems like so much effort for so little food. My room mate uses them merely as an acceptable vessel for melted butter.
I’ve never eaten one. Don’t plan to. Sorry if that causes anyone distress.
I’m often suprised at how limited a lot of peoples diet is.
I have a friend who had never seen or even eaten an eggplant.
I’ve only ever had it as a minor ingredient in something, or more recently on pizza. It came as rather large chunks of a cabbage-looking thing on the pizza and was soft. What’s this about teeth?
I steam and eat as many artichokes as I can afford. And I have a line in one of my poems that says as much. We were taught to eat them with vinagrette but I have a very decadent friend (the best kind) that eats them with melted butter.
Alas, the SO says eggplant gives her blisters in her mouth. Same with anchovies.
Sorry. I see someone else mentioned butter! BTW, artichokes supposedly change the taste of what you eat after them. They are notoriously hard to pair with wine and other foods. I believe there is an Italian aperitif that is consumed because it alters the flavors of the foods you eat after it. Fun artichoke facts to know and tell.
I prefer them as a vehicle for cheeses myself. This poor fellow made it through medical school and yet pain was not a hint he was improperly eating an artichoke. From the article, “It takes a sophisticated diner to be familiar with the artichoke,” says Carvajal’s lawyer, Marc R. Ginsberg.’
I have that problem with Twix. LOL!
I love artichokes, but I’m just too lazy to pull one apart anymore. I go straight to the freezer section at Trader Joe’s and buy a bag of perfectly trimmed ones. Just heat, soak in butter and eat. Yum! Plus, no chalky outer leaves when you accidently scrape too deeply. Blech!
I love artichokes, love 'em. The big ones I’ll stuff and bake, but the babies, I’ll steam and devour. They don’t need butter. A bit of balsamic vinegar is enough, but I even eat them plain. When I lived in California, a bag of the babies was incredibly cheap. You can buy the babies here and now, but they cost.
Artichokes are supposedly good for the liver and lower cholesterol. Long live the tasty thistle!
Which you’ll need after drenching them in melted butter 
I’ve only had them a few times and when I was younger since my mom would make them on rare occasions for fancy meals. Funny how “fancy meal” was a reason to manually pull apart the thing and scrape the leaves with our teeth.
Cannery waste is a major disposal problem. Potentially a very valuable source of organic matter, nutients and value added products (e.g. cellulose, silicas, oils etc.), but most often uneconomic to process.
Off-cuts and by-products can be used either as compost, or fertiliser or in some cases fed to livestock. (It’s an amusing sight to see a herd of dairy cows standing up to their knees and happily feeding in a dumped load of orange pulp).
The problem being there’s a very large volume of material often with very high water content. So it typically rots and spoils and the only practical way to handle it is as landfill.
If you really want to convert someone into an artichoke lover then get some fresh ones, prepare them properly, then make them Carciofi alla Giudea.
It’s traditional to simply serve sprinkled with lemon juice but I love to dip them in remoulade.
The fluffy bit is the choke, not the heart. The heart is the bit below the choke, it’s the bit that the petals grow from.
I like to cut artichokes in half, top to bottom, scoop out the choke with a spoon, and simmer in lemon water. For the dip, I melt butter, add some lemon juice and bread crumbs and Parmesan. Some people add some spices, too.