Jerusalem Artichoke Soup
When I was a kid, my mother often used to add sliced raw jerusalem artichokes to our salads. I have no idea why. She doesn't do it any more, and hasn't for years. At the time I just thought they were weird looking and didn't taste like much. Nothing at all like the real artichokes that we kids fought over at the dinner table. My kid's mind decided that they didn't grow very good artichokes in Jerusalem. Hah! Well, mystery solved. Turns out jerusalem artichokes are neither artichokes, nor are they from Jerusalem. They're tubers, native of North America, and the plant is related to and resembles sunflowers. (In fact, these days they are often called "sunchokes".) "Jerusalem" is thought to have evolved from the Italian name for the plant, "girasole" for sunflower. Why "artichoke"? If my mom had only cooked them, then that part of the mystery would have been solved for me. Cooked, they taste surprisingly like artichokes. Yum!
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