Sunchokes are a tuber like a potato. They grow in the ground and produce a flower that looks like a sunflower. Indigenous to North America, they are crunchy, white in flesh, and are excellent sauteed or in salad. Explorers to the New World noticed that the Indians cultivated them and brought them back to Europe.
There are several theories on how it became associated with artichokes and Jerusalem. Sunchokes somehow migrated to the gardens of Cardinal Farnese in Rome around 1617, near the Vatican. The Italian term for these tubers is girasole. Its rough Italian translation is sunflower or "towards the sun." Somehow the Cardinal translated them to Latin to English to Italian and back again. They might have grown towards Jerusalem. There seems to be something lost in translation...
Another theory is a gardner from Ter-Heusen, Holland distributed his "artichoke-apples" throughout Europe and the New World. During the 17th century the Puritan-Pilgrims in their original-sin-theological tongue translated Ter-Heusen to Jerusalem...while in Salem???
This should unchoke some confusion into these crunchy delectable tubers.
Tim, have you ever had any Topinambur, a distilled spirit made from sunchoke? I've tried a couple of them, very traditional in Germany and other parts of Europe. Yet another use for this interesting crop!
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