Zen leaf york7/31/2023 ![]() Jerusalem artichokes are so well-suited for the European climate and soil that the plant multiplies quickly. Sometime later, Petrus Hondius, a Dutch botanist, planted a shriveled Jerusalem artichoke tuber in his garden at Terneuzen and was surprised to see the plant proliferate. The following year, Champlain returned to the same area to discover that the roots had a flavor similar to chard and was responsible for bringing the plant back to France. The French explorer Samuel de Champlain discovered that the native people of Nauset Harbor in Massachusetts had cultivated roots that tasted like artichoke. Jerusalem artichokes were first cultivated by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas-this extensive cultivation obscures the exact native range of the species. Jerusalem Artichoke Flowers, Claude Monet, 1880, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. The New World connection resulted in the name topinambur being applied to the tuber, the word now used in French, German, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, and Spanish. The name topinambur, in one account, dates from 1615, when a member of the Brazilian coastal tribe called the Tupinambá visited the Vatican at the same time that a sample of the tuber from Canada was on display there, presented as a critical food source that helped French Canadian settlers survive the winter. Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer, sent the first samples of the plant to France, noting its taste was similar to that of an artichoke. The artichoke part of the Jerusalem artichoke's name comes from the taste of its edible tuber. Sunchoke, a name by which it is still known today, was invented in the 1960s by Frieda Caplan, a produce wholesaler trying to revive the plant's appeal. Various other names have been applied to the plant, such as the French or Canada potato, topinambour, and lambchoke. An alternative explanation for the name is that the Puritans, when they came to the New World, named the plant with regard to the "New Jerusalem" they believed they were creating in the wilderness. Over time, the name girasole (pronounced closer to in southern Italian dialects) was corrupted by English-speakers to Jerusalem. Italian settlers in the United States called the plant girasole, the Italian word for sunflower, because of its familial relationship to the garden sunflower (both plants are members of the genus Helianthus). ĭespite one of its names, the Jerusalem artichoke has no relationship to Jerusalem, and it is not a type of artichoke, though the two are distantly related as members of the daisy family. Jerusalem artichokes have an underlying sweet taste because of the fructose, which is about one and a half times as sweet as sucrose. Tubers stored for any length of time convert their inulin into its component, fructose. It is rich in the carbohydrate inulin (8 to 13% ), which is a polymer of the monosaccharide fructose. The tuber contains about 2% protein, no oil, and little starch. It later gradually fell into obscurity in North America, but attempts to market it commercially were successful in the late 1900s and early 2000s. Early European colonists learned of this and sent tubers back to Europe, where they became a popular crop and naturalized there. The tubers persist for years after being planted, so the species expanded its range from central North America to the eastern and western regions. īefore the arrival of Europeans, indigenous peoples cultivated H. The tubers can be eaten raw, cooked, or pickled. They vary in color from pale brown to white, red, or purple. The tubers are often elongated and uneven, typically 7.5–10 cm (3– 3 + 7⁄ 8 in) long and 3–5 cm (1–2 in) thick, and vaguely resembling a ginger root in appearance, with a crisp and crunchy texture when raw. The flowers are briefly fragrant, giving off a light, vanilla-chocolate perfume. The flowers are yellow and produced in capitate flowerheads, which are 5–10 cm (2–4 in) in diameter, with 10–20 ray florets and 60 or more small disc florets. Leaves higher on the stem are smaller and narrower. Larger leaves on the lower stem are broad ovoid-acute and can be up to 30 cm (12 in) long. Helianthus tuberosus is a herbaceous perennial plant growing to 1.5–3 m (4 ft 11 in – 9 ft 10 in) tall with opposite leaves on the lower part of the stem but alternate towards the top. It is cultivated widely across the temperate zone for its tuber, which is used as a root vegetable. The Jerusalem artichoke ( Helianthus tuberosus), also called sunroot, sunchoke, wild sunflower, topinambur, or earth apple, is a species of sunflower native to central North America. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jerusalem artichoke.
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