#sunroot

So. I'm standing in the big field with 10% hope that maybe I will find it. I tried to research 'how does the jerusalem artichoke look in the winter' and got absolutely nothing, only pictures of yellow flowers. I figured, maybe I'll see a stalk with a big dried flower, and that will be it. No such luck!

I'm checking the left side of the field. The only stalks I could see were those of the goldenrod, and that was easily recognizable. There were dry stalks of some other flowers as well, but always very tiny ones. I was looking for big flowers. There was blackberry, and tall grass. And some black, leafy stalks that looked a lot like goldenrod, but without the flowers on them.

I was suspicious about those, and I broke one off, to see if they were like goldenrod from the inside. They were different, more mushy. I decided to go and dig under that plant, based only on the premise that it was, on the left side on the field, and different to every other dried plant I could recognize.

And to my big surprise, it was the jerusalem artichoke! When I pulled a few of the stalks up, I was met with these big tubers, muddy and looking almost like ginger, which is how the artichoke looks like! I started laughing and wooing, because there was so little hope that I would be coming back home with food that day, and the stalks give nothing away, it literally looked like this:

To just randomly find delicious food digging under this? Feels like witchcraft.

I dug out just a few, and immediately had my hands filled with tubers. I didn't take pictures while digging because it was very cold, and I was extremely muddy and wet handling these, but I took a picture once I got home and cleaned them up. Here they are!

And this is just a bit, there's plenty more to dig out! They're both healthy and sating, their taste is exactly in the middle between a potato and an apple. My favourite way to eat them is pan fried, like you would do potatoes!

For those of you with gardening space you can afford to alott for food, go to a garden centre or to a specialty grocery store and buy the tuber called “Jerusalem artichoke”. Might also be called “sunchoke”. If you find the plant in a garden centre, it’s Latin name is “Helianthus tuberosus”. It’s a sunflower with edible tubers. It spreads aggressively, so you want it in a place where you can keep it under control.

It’s native to North America, so don’t worry about it being invasive if you live there, but you will have to thin it out from time to time. As long as you have a window where a lot of sunlight comes through, you could probably get away with growing them inside in a large pot. Again, you’ll have to thin it out from time to time or it will overcrowd itself.

Anyway, the tubers are ready in the late autumn, and are crunchy and kind of taste like artichoke, hence the common name, or like a water chestnut. Once you have them, you will never not have them, as even a small tuber or piece of rhizome left in the ground will grow as a new plant. They are sunflowers, but their flower heads aren’t huge like the sunflower you’re thinking of (Helianthus annuus). This is a perennial and it passes as a tall, decorative garden plant with bright yellow flowers, for those of you who live in areas with municipal laws against growing vegetables on your own property.

They can be sliced and eaten raw, they can be roasted, baked, fried, boiled, steamed, or even microwaved. They’re a source of fibre, potassium, copper, and iron. They are starchy and versatile and can be used a lot of the same ways potatoes can, though some people get gas from them, so eat in moderation.

Basically, though, this will be a reliable, plentiful, and nutritious food source every fall, and you can of course freeze the excess to eat for the rest of the year. Potatoes and turnips in short supply or too expensive or you just can’t lug home a potato because you don’t have a car? You don’t need to. You have sunchokes. Need a food item your neighbour has that you can’t get? Trade’em sunchokes for it.

You might not get a lot the first year with a single plant (I got a couple handsful), but my one plant is now ten after a single year and I can only imagine how many tubers I’ll find in the fall and how many plants I’ll have next year. Why buy potato plants every year to grow when you can get a plant once and it will multiply and produce food every year?