Sunchokes I

The other day I was shopping for a few things at a local store and suddenly I noticed these tubers looking slightly like ginger. I immediately recognized my old friends the sunchokes. When I was a kid my parents always grew these in the garden - back then I didn't appreciate them too much, but I've later grown to like them a lot.

Judging by the puzzled looks on peoples' faces I'd say they are not very well known here in southern California, but they do go by quite a few names nonetheless: sunroot, jerusalem artichoke and topinambur as well. They are not closely related to the artichoke, in fact they are much more closely related to the sunflower - and they are in several ways reminiscent of potatoes, although with interesting differences. Continuing the confusion they have no connection to Jerusalem - that name probably comes from the Italian for sunflower girasole. In Danish they are called jordskokker, which seems to be derived from jord-artiskokker (earth artichoke). And certain German-speaking regions they even go by Erdbirne (that is: earth pear - just like potatoes are "earth apples" in French).[1]

Because there's almost no market for them here they are somewhat pricey - especially considering that they are very easy to cultivate and give high crop yields (when I quoted my parents what I pay for them here they concluded they had a small fortune in the garden). Untill recently I only knew one store that carried them, but right now I know a least 3 stores around here carrying them.

They can be eaten raw or cooked. Raw they add a nice crisp crunch to a salad, but cooking them really brings out the flavour in them. If you decide to boil them, beware: They cook much faster than potatoes and quickly turn to a mush if boiled for too long. This is possibly because they contain inulin instead of starch.

Upcoming posts will showcase a few uses.

[1] Reading up on this I just learned that in southern Germany they make a schnapps from distilled sunchokes - now there's something I'm curious to try.