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Artichokes (Before the common potato)
before the common potato was introduced, but, unlike the potato, this tuber resists the action of the frost and is consequently allowed to remain in the ground during the winter, and is collected for use when required. On account of the absence of starch granules, it does not become mealy and dry, as the potato, and requires great care in cooking. Of course, a vegetable remaining in a sodden, watery condition is less digestible than a dry and mealy one. The artichokes should be used while fresh, washed and scraped, and thrown into cold water immediately, to prevent discoloration. When ready to cook, throw them in boiling water, and add a teaspoonful of salt, and boil for forty minutes. Watch them closely, as they will become hard and tough if over-cooked. Drain, and serve them with Cream Sauce or sauce Hollandaise.
JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES (à la VINAIGRETTE).
Scrape the artichokes, throw them into cold water, and when ready to serve, cut them into thin slices, with a silver fork. Arrange them neatly on lettuce leaves and pour over them the following sauce :- Put a salt-spoon of salt into a bowl, add a teaspoonful of water, stir until dissolved. Then add a tablespoonful of vinegar and work in gradually three tablespoonfuls of oil. If the oil floats and does not mingle with the vinegar, add another tablespoonful. Stir or rub constantly for about five minutes. Add a dash of cayenne and pour it over the artichokes. This, of course, should be served at once. JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES (à la LYONNAISE).
Scrape the artichokes, throw them into cold water; cut them into slices, boil in salt water for twenty minutes, Drain and dry on a towel.
Put a tablespoonful of butter in a frying pan and add one onion, sliced; fry until slightly colored. Then add the artichokes; toss until they are a light brown. Dust with salt and pepper, dish, sprinkle over them chopped parsley and serve.
Three treatments for Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes) from an era when they were still a serious winter root rather than a farmers'-market curiosity. The text's own warning is the useful one: these tubers behave nothing like potatoes.
- The hinge: stop cooking earlySunchokes have no starch to go mealy; their carbohydrate is inulin, which dissolves in water. Forty minutes at a boil will reduce most modern tubers to collapsing, waterlogged pieces. Start testing at 12-15 minutes for whole small ones and cook only until a knife slides in with slight resistance.
- "Hard and tough if over-cooked"The book's phrasing is odd, but the observation behind it is real: sunchokes held too long in water can turn slippery on the outside while staying oddly firm at the centre, and they do not go soft and floury the way a potato does. Once they reach that stage, further cooking is unlikely to fix them.
- Roasting is the better modern routeBecause inulin leaches out in water, dry heat gives a far better result than boiling. Halved sunchokes tossed in oil at 425F for 25-30 minutes come out sweet and nutty. The Lyonnaise method here, pan-frying after a short boil, is working toward the same end.
- The silver forkNot affectation. Cut surfaces of polyphenol-rich vegetables can discolour on contact with iron and carbon steel, and period cookbooks routinely call for a silver knife or fork on that account. A stainless knife does the job now, and the cold-water bath still prevents browning.
- Salt-spoonA salt-spoon holds roughly a quarter teaspoon. The vinaigrette as given is therefore about 1 tablespoon vinegar to 3-4 tablespoons oil, which is a standard modern ratio; whisking rather than five minutes of rubbing will emulsify it in seconds.
- ScrapingSunchokes are knobbly enough that peeling wastes half the tuber. A stiff brush under running water is sufficient for anything roasted or fried; scrape only if you want them pale for the vinaigrette.
- Inulin and digestionThe book frets about "sodden, watery" vegetables being indigestible. The actual issue is that inulin is not broken down in the small intestine and reliably causes gas in quantity. Serve modest portions the first time, particularly the raw vinaigrette version.
- YieldNone is given. Reckon on 1 to 1.5 lb of tubers for four as a side dish, and about 4 tablespoons of dressing for that amount in the vinaigrette.
Jerusalem artichokes are neither artichokes nor from Jerusalem: the plant is Helianthus tuberosus, a North American sunflower relative whose tubers were eaten by indigenous peoples of the eastern woodlands and carried to Europe in the early seventeenth century. The name is generally traced to a corruption of the Italian girasole, sunflower, though this remains a traditional explanation rather than a documented one; "artichoke" is usually said to have attached itself because the cooked flavour was thought to resemble the globe artichoke's heart. The opening line of this entry, comparing the tuber to "the common potato," reflects a genuine period of competition: sunchokes were grown as a food crop in Europe through the seventeenth century before the potato largely supplanted them, after which they survived mainly as stock feed and as a crop for cooks who valued a vegetable that could be dug out of frozen ground in midwinter. That frost-hardiness, and the absence of starch, are exactly the two facts this book leads with.