Jerusalem Artichokes: The Gourmet Sunflower

By The Mother Earth News Editors
Published on November 1, 1977
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Photo By Fotolia/jahcottontail143
These freshly dug Jerusalem artichokes make a great substitute for potatoes.

Jerusalem artichokes, aka “sunchokes”, are an edible vegetable that can substitute for potatoes or be used raw in salads.

How to Prepare Jerusalem Artichokes

Jerusalem Artichoke Recipes

I’m told that about 90 species of sunflower grow in the world . . . two-thirds of them right here on the North American Continent. If I had to pick just one variety of the plant to live with for the rest of my life, however, I don’t think I’d have too much trouble deciding on the particular kind of sunflower that is known as the Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus).

Granted, the Jerusalem artichoke isn’t much in some respects when you compare it to most of the rest of the sunflower family. It only grows from five to ten feet tall (other sunflowers sometimes stretch up 20 feet or more) and it has nothing at all in the center of its blossoms (where most sunflowers boast a large, brown disc loaded with oil-rich, edible seeds).

Then again, you can’t always judge a book by its cover . . . or a sunflower by its seeds. Because, buried beneath the surface of the earth, the modest little Jerusalem artichoke has hidden away something that the other sunflowers don’t have: pints, quarts, pecks — sometimes even bushels — of a tasty, nutritious somewhat-potato-like tuber. A tuber, moreover, that you can harvest and enjoy throughout that long, cold portion of the year (winter) when so many other wild and cultivated fruits and vegetables are no longer available.

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