Jerusalem Artichokes

Even in the pouring rain, holding too many bags for two hands and a broken umbrella that kept collapsing and dumping water down my back, I had to stop in front of a farmer’s market stall displaying some fantastically knobbly produce. The ruddy specimens were almost prismatic in shape, with tiny nubs budding out of larger warhead-like sections. These kinds of shapes are not usually edible, so I was set on eating them.

I asked someone who seemed to be working there what the unusual vegetables were. He replied, “Ginger.” The color was gingery enough, but these things were spikier than any ginger I had ever seen. I was ready to assume they were some exotic and unknown ginger species, perhaps originating from the foothills of Australia and brought to the Finger Lakes region by a migration of settlers in the late 1990s, but another man stepped up and corrected the first guy: “They’re Jerusalem artichokes.”

This made much more sense; I’d had Jerusalem artichokes, also called sunchokes, as a child, and I remember loving their nutty flavor and how well they reacted to being smeared with butter. They appeared on our table as a one-ingredient dinner a few times, but I don’t think I ever thought of them as anything other than “those potato-y things.”

These tubers deserve attention as much more than potato-y things. When boiled until tender, their resilient skin adds a nice contrast (and probably heaps of nutrition) to their delicate inner flesh, which has a unique but essentially vegetal flavor, reminiscent of artichokes minus the hint of bitterness that the thistles sometimes have. The batch I got from the farmer’s market were delicious along with some kale and venison stew (from a 99-cent packet heated in the microwave – don’t you wish you lived near Canned Foods or had a mother who did?). For an ingredient with such interesting appearance and flavor I’m always tempted to keep the preparation minimal, but I hear Jerusalem artichokes also make good soups and gratins.