A little reflection on Jerusalem Artichokes

You know that sometimes one becomes so used to something being there that one no longer thinks about it. One just takes it for granted and gives it no further thought.

So it is with my patch of Jerusalem artichokes. There it was when we first took over the garden and at that stage of my life I don’t think that I even knew what one was. Then as my culinary skills increased I did learn how to cook them and we’ve eaten them occasionally every winter since then. Just a few for 37 years. To be frank they are rather a bother. They are best when freshly dug, preferably after the first frost to improve their flavour. But they are very fiddly to clean and peel, being very earthy and full of knobbles and bulges and nooks and crannies where the earth really sticks in. No, definitely not for the faint hearted. And then, of course, there is their effect on the digestive system that leads to their nickname that I am far too polite to write here.

So why, I ask myself on an autumn stroll round the veg garden, do we have a Jerusalem artichoke patch the size of 3 parking spaces, growing enough to feed the whole of Lechlade? It was a moment of illumination. I looked at the patch with new eyes and knew that it needed to be drastically reduced in size, otherwise we are in danger of these tubers with Triffid like stalks (they are related to the sunflower), taking over the garden. I already fear that they have their eyes on the green house and will erupt inside at any minute. They are certainly not difficult to dig up, but any little tuber left in the ground will begin to reproduce. Any body who would like to grow their very own J As, please come to me and I’ll give you a starter pack. They are not very attractive to look at. They don’t flower. They do spread, as I’ve said. They have absolutely nothing to do with the Globe Artichoke or with Jerusalem, and you won’t eat them very often. But, hey, somebody thought that they were a good enough idea to plant in my garden to start with, and they do make a good soup.

- Barbara McNaught