Crunchy, dense, nutty, sweet and native to North America, Sunchokes are versatile, tuberous roots that can be served raw, fried, steamed or roasted.—Susannah Black
Learn
Misnomer
Neither an artichoke nor from Israel, Jerusalem artichokes—or sunchokes—procured their title from a corruption of terms: “Jerusalem” possibly comes from a bastardization of the Italian word for sunflower “girasole,” which refers to the bright, yellow blooms. (Sunchoke is the tuber, or nutrient storage unit, of the sunflower plant). Artichokes and sunchokes also taste similar, thus the nod to well-known thistle.
Grow
Tubers Gone Wild
When Tarver King hikes the Appalachian Trail in the spring, he plants sunchoke seeds, marks the plot by dropping pins on his phone’s Google map and returns in the fall to harvest, when, says King, “the bright, orange-yellow flowers on the plant die. That’s when you know the roots are really big.”
While it may seem odd to start a garden in the wild, King says it’s because it takes sunchokes almost six feet of room to grow.
Once the sunchokes are in King’s Lovettsville kitchen at The Restaurant at Patowmack Farm, he prefers pickling the tubers. “Because of their firm texture,” says King, “they retain a really great crunchiness.” King says the sunchoke’s sweetness intermingles with the rice vinegar, dill and garlic used to pickle, creating a sweet-sour-bitter flavor and will be used for a brunch dish mimicking the Japanese dish congee with peanuts, dandelion greens and fried eggs over rice porridge.
Eat
Like it Raw
“Sunchokes are so friendly, you can’t go wrong with them,” says Karen Page, author of last year’s “The Vegetarian Flavor Bible.”
According to Page, those new to sunchokes should be comforted in the fact that “they’re so easy; they especially die are even more versatile than potatoes.”
Though sunchokes, especially when eaten raw, have a bad rap for causing digestive issues (nickname: fartichokes), Page prefers to eat them uncooked, tossing them into a salad, stir-fry or dipping them into butter and salt, like a radish.
(February 2015)
