Jerusalem Artichokes

[zimmerstutzen]

Neither having any relation to Jerusalem or artichokes, they are a relative of the sunflower and were cultivated by North American peoples long before European contact. The root tubers are eaten. From a 1621 text about the New World, concerning them:

which way soever they be dressed and eaten, they stir and cause a filthy loathsome stinking wind within the body, thereby causing the belly to be pained and tormented, and are a meat more fit for swine than men.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I found them a delightful change to some of the more mundane tubers used in stews.

The name, I was taught, is an English *******ization of the Italian word "Girasole" [je-ra-so-lay], which then became "Jerusalem". The tubers having been sent back to Europe and cultivated quite early after contact.

LD