Camus and Castel artichokes

Artichokes were first introduced in France on the table of Queen Catherine de Medici. ‘Camus de Bretagne’ is the most famous artichoke variety and was created around 1810 by an agronomist from the Paris region. The artichoke belongs to the Asteraceae family. It is one of the rare crops where the flower bud is eaten: what we know as the heart. The flower bud (heart) is surrounded by bracts (or leaves), the bottom ends of which are edible.

Camus is Prince de Bretagne’s historic and emblematic variety and the most widely cultivated artichoke in France. Deep ash green in colour, they have a well rounded and tight capitulum, with broad, short leaves, the first rings of which are sometimes open. Their hearts are tender and fleshy. Castel is a more recent variety and appreciated for its voluminous, very fleshy heart.

Artichokes are cultivated entirely manually. They require 250 to 300 hours of work per hectare (compared to eight hours per hectare for cereal crops) and eight passes per plot for harvesting. Plants remain in the ground for three years. At harvest time, market gardeners cut the heads one by one by hand, using a knife, when they reach maturity. After harvesting each year, artichokes are cut back to ground level and a new clump then forms, with the market gardeners selecting a single shoot (a ‘sucker’) by hand. Each sucker produces a large central artichoke (called the ‘mother’) and several smaller ones on the sides (the ‘wings’). Numerous passages for mechanical weeding using hoes are conducted in the fields throughout the year.