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For the first time in 25 years in China, I found my favourite vegetable. None of my friends has a clue what it is! But that was true of asparagus just a few years ago; now it's everywhere.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that it has multiple names in Chinese; it has in English, too.

I call them artichokes. Or, when I'm in the Latin mood, Cynara cardunculus var. scolymus. You might call them globe artichokes, French artichokes or green artichokes. Certainly not Jerusalem artichokes, which are unrelated, and which were only so named because some cloth-eared idiot misheard the real name!

In Chinese, they are 菜蓟 (cài jì) which means 'vegetable thistle' or 洋蓟 (yáng jì) which means 'foreign thistle'. I know how I like to cook and eat them, but have no idea what my friends would do with them and neither do they, because they've never met them before!

I'll update this in about ten years when they've worked it out!

By the way, there is also something called 'Chinese artichoke' (Stachys affinis), 甘露子 (gān lù zǐ) which is no relation either and tastes nothing like mine.

For the first time in 25 years in  China, I found my favourite vegetable. None of my friends has a clue what it is! But that was true of asparagus just a few years ago; now it's everywhere.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that it has multiple names in Chinese; it has in English, too.

I call them artichokes. Or, when I'm in the Latin mood, Cynara cardunculus var. scolymus. You might call them globe artichokes, French artichokes or green artichokes. Certainly not Jerusalem artichokes, which are unrelated, and which were only so named because some cloth-eared idiot misheard the real name!

In Chinese, they are 菜蓟 (cài jì) which means 'vegetable thistle' or 洋蓟 (yáng jì) which means 'foreign thistle'. I know how I like to cook and eat them, but have no idea what my friends would do with them and neither do they, because they've never met them before!

I'll update this in about ten years when they've worked it out!

By the way, there is also something called 'Chinese artichoke' (Stachys affinis), which is no relation either and tastes nothing like mine.