Place the artichoke immediately into a large bowl of cold water acidulated with the juice of 1 lemon or the cut surfaces will turn black. Cut off the stem and the top of the leaves or simply snip off the pointed end of each leaf using kitchen scissors. If you are going to cook the whole, trimmed artichoke, you may choose to remove the hairy choke first; this grows out of the artichoke heart

Part the leaves if you have merely snipped off the tips. Very young artichokes and the smaller, tender varieties can be sliced and quartered after this preparation and all the remaining sections can be eaten but artichokes such as the Breton variety most frequently sold in Britain are best boiled whole and the leaves peeled off one by one as they only have tender flesh at the base of each leaf and at the heart. This is exposed when all the leaves have been pulled off and

Often the stalk of very young artichokes is tender enough to cook and eat but it must first be trimmed and peeled

the choke, looking a little like an immature thistle flower, can be carefully removed with a teaspoon or a peeling knife with a curved blade to expose the 'heart' which looks like a small, thick disc slightly hollowed on top. Any remaining tough parts can be pared off.