At many tables of the imminent Christmas parties, dishes with succulent artichokes will parade. Lush, succulent, stylish and healthy, the prized vegetable has it all. And yet, on December 26, 1935, New York imposed the total artichoke ban in any medium and field. A decision that was little short of crazy and that did not respond to health or food reasons, but to fight the mafia.
In Spain we love artichokes, but the deep passion they feel in Italy for this flower dressed as a vegetable is another story. Not surprisingly, they were precisely the italian immigrants who introduced and spread its benefits in the United States, a country that, with few exceptions, was unaware of its mere existence until the end of the 19th century.
European immigration was not only instrumental in shaping America’s diverse cuisine, it also brought its customs, techniques, utensils, and ingredients. The italian american cuisine is possibly one of the most popular of all the branches that emerged, but its peculiar link with the mafia it is not so well known. Beyond the idea of how much its members enjoyed good food, of course.
The artichoke in the United States
Cultivated and consumed in the Mediterranean regions for more than two millennia, the artichoke was a stranger in the American continent. The Italians who had recently arrived in the land of opportunities were not going to be left without their precious delicacy, but they had to find the right place to cultivate it.
The climatic and soil conditions offered by the lands of northern California presented themselves as the ideal environment for its production to thrive, and it was so. In a few years, artichoke plantations in the area multiplied and the American public went from ignoring this vegetable to learning how to cook it. But its large consumers were still Italian Americans.
While the artichoke was paid at a bargain price in California itself, the businessman John Debenedetti realized that the high demand for the beloved vegetable on the east coast, especially in the north and the entire New York area, multiplied its price. The business was clearly in the export to other states of the country.
In 1917 he founded a producers’ association south of San Francisco and a powerful Commercial route that would take tons of vegetables to the other end of the country, in innovative refrigerated trucks, to fill the markets of Italian neighborhoods. In a very few years the artichoke, more specifically the variety babywent from being a rare and exclusive product to just another vegetable, which even appeared in cookbooks aimed at American housewives.
A lucrative business for extortion
Growing prosperously in California and selling for generous prices on the other coast, the artichoke trade became too tempting for covetous eyes. greedy and criminals.
One of the largest mafia organizations that had the most influence at the time, the Morello-Terranova family, already began to keep an eye on the artichokes that arrived in New York in the first decade of the century. Then they only levied a special tax on incoming goods, until cyrus newfoundlanddeputy head of the organization, decided to get more out of it.
Not content with his parallel businesses linked to betting, gambling or alcohol, Terranova took complete control of the sale of artichokes in the city, extorting importers to sell the boxes for a derisory amount, and then sell them to merchants multiplying their price.
This lucrative operation earned him the nickname of ‘The King of the Artichoke’ (The Artichoke King) and provided him with substantial benefits for a couple of decades, coming to act directly in the fields of California intimidating farmers; according to some sources they even threw gas bombs at the crops using small planes.
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artichokes are prohibited
Elected mayor of New York in 1934, Fiorello LaGuardiaone of the most popular in the history of the city for his charisma and his interventionist policies, had promised fight organized crime and corruption in the city. In the last years of the Prohibition Law, things did not seem to be easy in a society in which the mafia roamed freely.
But the artichoke scam began to lose interest for the Morello-Terranova as they began to focus on other more lucrative – and illegal – businesses. Also taking advantage of the fact that the authority of “the king” Ciro was in the doldrums, with young criminals hot on his heels, LaGuardia took the opportunity to set up one of the public exhibits that would both benefit his long career and elderly.
The artichoke was prohibited for only three days, but it fulfilled the mayor’s plan
On the morning of December 21, 1935, he appeared at dawn with a group of policemen at the Bronx market and, after the agents announced his presence with trumpets, he took cover behind a vegetable truck to address the merchants with all his might. grandiloquence. The mayor took out and read an official communiqué declaring the emergency situation in the city and thus proclaiming the prohibition of “the sale, exhibition or possession” of artichokes.
The measure would come into force on December 26 to combat, as he stated, kidnappings, murders, extortion and blackmail derived from the vegetable trade in the city. Although the press described the measure as a bizarre madnessLaGuardia knew very well what he was doing.
With Ciro Terranova virtually out of action and his successor facing federal indictment for violating antitrust laws, the criminal activity around the artichoke had its days numbered. The prohibition could only last three days, since it also raised a unusual interest among the population for trying the banned vegetable, multiplying its demand.
The Morello-Terranova family had other matters to worry about and the former King would die shortly after becoming the laughing stock of the Cosa Nostra New Yorker, poor and after suffering two consecutive heart attacks. The already legitimate artichoke business prospered and the gangsters turned to other pursuits.
And although this small chapter in the great history of organized crime seems like a distant anecdote, the mafias have never given up operations with food, ingredients and beverages. The cases of scam, fraud and abusive practices continue to be repeated today throughout the world, but they seem to occupy less attention than other more potentially dangerous and media-produced merchandise.
Images | Unsplash – Library of Congress – Wikimedia Commons
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