A plate of grilled artichokes, photo/wonderyort

A customer is suing a Houston restaurant for failing to train its waiters and waitresses to instruct customers on how to eat artichokes.  In Carvajal v Hillstone Restaurant Group No. 10-57757 CA 03, the patron stipulates he ate the outside leaf, not realizing that one eats the soft inside part of the leaf. He stipulate that the restaurant servers…

“had a duty to use reasonable care with respect to the serving and explanation of items not described on the menu; which by their appearance as served appeared wholly consumable.” He is seeking damages in excess of $15,000.  [via law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon, pdf]

Obviously, this eater has never read Ogden Nash’s poem on the artichoke.

I seek in anonymity’s cloisters
Not him who ate the first raw oyster,
But one who, braving spikes and prickles,
The spine that stabs, the leaf that tickles,
With infinite patience and fortitude,
Unveiled the artichoke as food.

For if he had, I doubt if he would have heeded the warning. Because if he did, he surely would have included in his lawsuit not just the restaurant but the original guy who first revealed that artichokes are for eating.