Jerusalem artichokes hardly look like leading candidates for the title of International Vegetable of Mystery. They are small, cylindrical tubers, with the rings and rough surface that make them look like single fingers of ginger or slightly longer colocasia (arbi).
I'm guessing that's what most Indians will think they are, and probably pass them over.
Which would be a pity since Jerusalem artichokes offer something quite distinct. For one, they don't have arbi's surface sliminess. Jerusalem artichokes are firm and can even be eaten with the peel, which some recommend since there are nutrients just below the skin. Like jicama (sankhalu), but unlike most other root vegetables, Jerusalem artichokes can be eaten raw and have a fresh crunchy texture, with a nutty sweetness, like the white chunks from a freshly opened coconut.
But where jicama doesn't change texture as it cooks, Jerusalem artichokes do. They soften into creamy starchiness like potatoes, and can collapse into mush if cooked too long, which is another reason to leave the peel on.
Their sweetness gets accentuated - they contain inulin, a type of fructose, which gives it a faint, but distinct sweetness which comes out with cooking. Harold McGee, the food science writer, says that cooking Jerusalem artichokes at low heat for almost 24 hours will cause even more fructose to develop and the texture to turn translucent "like vegetable aspic".
I have never tried this because till recently Jerusalem artichokes were hard to get in India, and this is part of their many mysteries. But first lets consider the most obvious one - that name which seems so oddly imposing for such a modest tuber and which, as every writer on them is quick to tell you, is totally wrong since these are neither artichokes nor have anything to do with Jerusalem.
Their origin is in the Americas but unlike most New World items that gained Old World popularity, like chillies and tomatoes, they don't come from the tropical regions or South America, but the North Eastern seaboard of the US and Canada, an area more known for fish and berries than vegetables. This was where Samuel de Champlain, the early 17th century explorer and later founder of the French colony in Canada, encountered them, and I think some weight has to be given to his being a food loving Frenchman who was far from good food when a native tribe must have shared these delicious roots.
This would account for his delighted reaction detecting the flavour of globe artichokes in them. McGee notes that globe artichokes are from the thistle family, which is a sub-branch of the large Asteraceae or daisy family, so a taste link is possible, but most people would not make an automatic association between those thick leaves with their subtly flavoured fleshy hearts and these crisp tubers.
Champlain did and it proved tenacious. When he sent the roots back to Europe, the artichoke name stuck and they were known for a time as artichaut de Canada, which is logical, if not exactly enticing.
But the French decided something better was needed and since the most interesting things in Paris around the time the roots appeared was the presence of members of an Amazonian Indian tribe called the Topinambours, brought as human exhibits in the manner of that time, they decided to name the roots after them, and topinambour is still their French name.
The English stuck with artichokes and Jerusalem was added at some point. Many explanations have been attempted as to why, with the most common theory being that it is a corruption of girasole, or sun-turning, an Italian name for sunflowers, which is indeed what Jerusalem artichokes are, with bright yellow flowers that are a bit smaller than the big headed, seed heavy sunflower grown as a commercial crops.
But other explanations have been suggested - for example, that it derives from the name of one of the first people who popularised it, or because early settlers in North America hoped it would be a new Jerusalem, the kingdom of their dreams, and the tubers were a tasty promise of this. Whatever the origins, the name helped the tuber stand out.
It even got extended - for example, a good soup made with them, like potato soup but with a better, subtler taste, is known as Palestine Soup. For a while Jerusalem artichokes had a reputation as aristocratic potatoes, with a similar texture when cooked, but that subtly savoury taste, an elusive back-of-the-palate richness that makes them an excellent accompaniment to rich tasting meat, like game fowl or venison.
The British in particular loved it and, naturally, brought it to India along with the many other vegetables they introduced here. Here is another mystery. There are many 19th century references to Jerusalem artichokes in India. Hobson-Jobson, the dictionary of Indian English, notes they were called 'Hathipich', probably a variation on 'Hattychook', the name malis gave to globe artichokes.
In Robert Montgomery Martin's History, Antiquities, Topography and Statistics of Eastern India (1838) he notes that "Mr.Smith has introduced the Jerusalem artichoke to Nathpoor, where it grows most luxuriantly."
He adds with some surprise that "the natives seem to look at it with total indifference; although I should have imagined that it would have suited their taste remarkably, being well fitted for curries; but they have an aversion to tasting anything not know to their fathers." Flora Annie Steele and Grace Gardiner in their Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook instruct on how to grow them and give a recipe for a souffle.
But the biggest fan was Colonel Kenney-Herbert in his Culinary Jottings for Madras: "The Jerusalem artichoke (topinambour) is a vegetable which, as a rule, people either dislike exceedingly, or are very fond.
I place it among the best we have," he wrote in his forthright way. He suggested cooking it with cream and cheese, or frying them as fritters, or boiling them in milk and mashing them into a puree which he suggested serving cold with mayonnaise, a dish he called Topinambours a la Chetput, a name that predisposes me in their favour, since Chetpet is the Chennai neighbourhood where I grew up! But then the Jerusalem artichoke vanishes.
For all its popularity with the British, sometime in the 20th century it just drops out of Indian cookery books. It is so absent as a crop that it is not mentioned in K.V.Peter's excellent handbook Tuber Crops, which describes 15 roots in detail, from Alocasia to Xanthosama, but not a mention of Jerusalem artichokes which are, frankly, better tasting than most of them.
Not all crops introduced by the British did equally well, but even those that didn't, like kohlrabi, generally continued in minor cultivation in some part of India. Jerusalem artichokes just disappeared. It is true that even abroad Jerusalem artichokes became rare, and it is suggested is they lost to potatoes, which had the advantage of a more neutral taste.
Jerusalem artichokes also have one problem. Inulin is not easily digested, which some offer as a further benefit, because it allows people to eat the roots and not get fat (and diabetics can enjoy the sweetish taste without fear). The downside is that this lack of digestion causes flatulence, and Jerusalem artichokes have a reputation as tremendous producers of wind.
I can see this being a problem abroad, but why in India? We are much less embarrassed by this issue, perhaps in consequence of our large consumption of dal. My guess is that the flowers were a distraction. When people like Colonel Kenney-Herbert left India, people forgot about the edible tubers, and just assumed that the flowers were why the plants were grown.
They just kept growing them for this, then perhaps replaced them with showier sunflower varieties and slowly their cultivation faded away. It is only now that growers like Samar Gupta have reintroduced them and they are cropping up on restaurant menus like at The Table in Mumbai, where they are referred to as sunchokes, a name devised in the 1960s by an American grower, Frieda Caplan, as a less odd sounding way to market them.
But Jerusalem artichokes are hardy plants, which often run wild and I wonder if somewhere in India, perhaps in the Nilgiris, which produced the topinambours the Colonel loved, or in the Eastern foothills of the Himalayas, near Nathpoor where they once grew well, but which was washed away by the changing rivers of the Kosi, there may still be found Jerusalem artichokes growing wild.
Perhaps some locals may even still be collecting their roots, thinking them an odd variant of arbi, but worth relishing, whatever their name.
