A MIDDLE EASTERN SEASONING FOR AN EARTHY ROAST

Steps:

• December 2007 and a net of ivory and pink artichokes has turned up in the organic box, as knobbly as a bag of vertebrae. We have had them twice out of the garden already this week and I am not sure whether to laugh or cry. Sound and clean, they have a pink blush to them that makes them appear more delicate than they probably are. They tempt, though, and I decide to roast them to serve with the sliced cold ham and jar of fruit jelly in the fridge.
• The tubers get a brief once-over under cold water, which makes their soft colors shine like young flesh, then I put them on the chopping board and whack each with a can of chickpeas. I could have used a rolling pin to break the rough-sided tubers but I like the squat heaviness of the can in the hand-it feels like the right tool for the job. The idea is, I suppose, to crack each one open so that the roughly broken insides as well as the skin might caramelize in the oven's heat.
• For no particular reason, I decide to follow the earlier roast artichoke recipe but to season the sweet, earthy roots with the piquancy of a couple of chopped pickled lemons, a teaspoon of crushed coriander seeds, and the throat tickle of large, coarse parsley leaves. The contrast with the pan-cooked ones with fresh lemon I mentioned previously is striking.