A Tuber’s Biography: The Canada Potato

Gremolata

Andrew Coppolino
November 2007

“They stir up…a filthie loathsome stinking winde within the bodie,
thereby causing the belly to bee much pained and tormented, and are a meat
more fit for swine, than men.”

—Waverley Root, Food

Swine or otherwise, we come to know things by their names. But sometimes

the names by which we know certain foods aren’t so straightforward;
sometimes those names reveal (and conceal) a lot more than we might
expect.

Take, for instance, the Jerusalem artichoke—the “Canada Potato.” The

moniker is deceiving, like other food names. Wild rice isn’t really rice. Bell
peppers are a mistake of nomenclature admitted into the language of food by
Christopher Columbus, who thought they held peppercorns. Yams will be
continually confused with sweet potatoes in the same way endive and
chicory will be endlessly intertwined in a salada mista of obfuscation by the
rufescent presence of radicchio.

The Jerusalem artichoke has its own rich history attached to a misleading
sobriquet, both in terms of duration and complexity. For nearly 400 years,
both parts of the name have been the subject of conjecture: such confusion
and lack of clarity certainly can’t be good for a veggie’s popularity, can it?
As early as 1620, Tobias Venner, in The Straight Way to Long Life,
expatiates gastronomically and ruminates over elements of culinary history
in which is noted that “Artichocks of Jerusalem…is a roote usually eaten
with butter, vinegar, and pepper.” That basic preparation—nearly 400 years
in the making—still works from a culinary perspective.

While today we might still eat this little-known vegetable according to

Venner’s simple recipe, from a botanical perspective, the Jerusalem
artichoke is a perennial tuber related to the sunflower. Scientifically, it is
known as Helianthus tuberosus and, by virtue of reaching seven feet in
height, is not even remotely close to being an artichoke.

To understand the evolution of this compound (and confounding) name, it is

necessary to divide and conquer.

One quaint theory contends that, newly arrived in Europe and because it
looked like a sunflower (it is heliotropic and follows the sun during the day),
mid-17th century Italians gave to the “sun root” the name girasole, or “sun
turner.” To this, with only an Italian’s gustatory sensibility, they attached the
second part of the name (articiocco) because it tasted like artichoke—hence,
girasole articiocco.

And sure enough, botanical sources of the 1800s asserted that, “The name of
the Jerusalem Artichoke is considered to be a corruption of the Italian
Girasole Articiocco or Sunflower Artichoke, under which name it is said to
have been distributed from the Farnese garden in Rome, soon after its
introduction to Europe in 1617” (Lindley and Moore, The Treasury of
Botany, 1866). The Farnese Gardens on Palatine Hill, one of the Seven Hills
of Rome, date back to the 16th century and are among the first botanical
gardens in Europe.

Girasole, apparently, evolved into “Jerusalem” as the tuber and its name
travelled throughout Europe where few vegetables have had such an impact
on the diets, dinner tables, and even street vendors as the Jerusalem
artichoke. The result of this food name-game is that we now have the
“Jerusalem Artichoke” to ponder…and to eat.

While the Jerusalem artichoke has no religious connection, a fanciful theory

abounds there as well. Sir Walter Raleigh noticed the vegetable being
cultivated by native North Americans as early as 1585. These indigenous
peoples, from Georgia and along the eastern seaboard to Nova Scotia, called

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the plant a “sun root,” and it was a mainstay of their diet. It is surmised that
Raleigh and the pilgrims started eating sun roots as an important food source
in the “New Jerusalem.”

A few centuries later, explorers Lewis and Clark, hearty Virginians that they
were, eagerly munched Jerusalem artichokes with the Mandan people of
Dakota when food was scarce. In covering over 13,000 kilometres in their
expedition between 1804 and 1806, they were bound to have eventually
stumbled upon the plant, especially when considering that it grows like a
weed.

While the potato originated in South America, and the tomato, being a native
of the new world, took a circuitous trip through Europe and then back to
colonial dinner tables, the Jerusalem artichoke indeed has a Canadian
connection—underplayed as it is in true Canadian modesty.

Samuel de Champlain, the father of New France who explored the Saint
Lawrence and paddled the waterways of what is now southern Ontario and
upper-state New York, encountered the Jerusalem artichoke in the early
1600s.

A few years later, even while otherwise somewhat occupied with

establishing the little thing known as the first European settlement in what is
today Quebec City, he stumbled upon it again in 1616. This time, he was
inclined to send Jerusalem artichokes back to France. It is through
Champlain that the Jerusalem Artichoke became known as the “Canada
Potato.”

There’s another layer where seemingly unrelated vectors of tuber-history

have intersected, like a shovel thrust into a swede (not to muddle the
nationalities any further).

It seems that Champlain’s Canada potatoes appeared in France at roughly

the same time as captured slaves from Brazil: as they were nastily paraded
through the streets of Paris, these striking native peoples—the apparently
cannabalistic Topinambas—and our humble Canada potato (now being sold
from street vendors’ carts) somehow became conflated.

Hence, the French word for Jerusalem artichoke is “topinambour,” and you
can still find dozens of recipes for les topinambours. Elizabeth David’s
French Provincial Cooking (1960), for instance, lists three.

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Throughout the decades and in the annals of folk medicine, the Jerusalem
artichoke had considerable value as an efficacious aperient (laxative), a
cholagogue (to reduce bile), a diuretic, a spermatogenic (increasing sperm
count), and as a stomachic and tonic (aiding digestion). It was also thought
to be a folk remedy for diabetes and rheumatism (Duke, J.A. and Wain, K.K.
1981. Medicinal Plants of The World). Not so far off the mark: today, flour
that is ground from Jerusalem artichokes can be used by people who suffer
from allergies to wheat and other grains.

The tuber has certainly suffered the slings and arrows of taste-bud
disapproval with the virulence that only a kid could muster over a plate of
mushy Brussels sprouts, and it was scorned because it was thought to cause
leprosy, a result of its scaly skin and knobby finger-like shape.

Uncooked, it can stimulate lactobacilli in the intestinal tract—less subtly,

raw Jerusalem artichokes can cause flatulence. Waverley Root cites one
critic: “they stir up…a filthie loathsome stinking winde within the bodie,
thereby causing the belly to bee much...tormented, and are a meat more fit
for swine, than men.” A dyspeptic’s heavy bias, no doubt.

In the twentieth-century, this lowly vegetable was associated with the

rutabaga and cabbage as a “food for the poor.” This was likely a stigma that
came about after the Second World War: the French especially came to
despise it because it was virtually the only vegetable obtainable and one for
which no ration card was needed. By virtue of its heartiness and quick
growth, however, it saved millions from starvation.

The problem during WWII, chef and culinary teacher Madeleine Kamman
says, was that it was sold frozen which rendered it virtually too sweet to eat
[The New Making of a Cook (1997), 367]. Kamman compares her childhood
with her later cooking career where the Jerusalem artichoke has been “the
discovery of my life.” It is now referred to as a “gourmet” vegetable by
many sources.

Ah, how a tuber’s fortunes can turn.

It has even been the subject of a relatively recent “vegetable scandal” of

Enron-esque proportions (at least for a potato-like veg): in his grandiosely
titled Jerusalem Artichoke: The Buying and Selling of the Rural American
Dream (1980), Joseph Amato describes a nefarious vegetable “pyramid
selling scheme,” which resulted in financial losses for investors

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(“Commercial Vegetable Products Guide,” Oregon State University:
http://oregonstate.edu/Dept/NWREC/artichje.html).

The plant has also been called a “sunchoke,” with credit given for this
paradoxical appellation going to sunny California where farmers in the
1960s began experimenting with hybrids of Jerusalem artichokes and
sunflowers in order to produce sugar.

Sunchokes have had a commercial and industrial application as well and for
several decades were the focus of research as an efficient source of fructose
sugar and fuel-alcohol (only in California).

Although the vegetable has a potato-like texture, the Canada potato is a good
substitute for potatoes for people with diabetes as it can assist with the
maintenance of blood sugar levels. Seventy-five to 80% of its carbohydrates
exist in the form of inulin, a starch that is not absorbed by the human body.

They are nearly 80% water, 10-15% protein, 1% fat, 5% fibre with small
amounts of Vitamins B and C, while high in iron, thiamine, and about
300mg of potassium in 125 mL, which comes to about 60 calories.

There are several varieties of sunchoke (Mammoth French White, Columbia,

Stampede, Brazilian White, Brazilian Red) many of which have been
developed to smooth out its distorted, knobby appearance and make it more
aesthetically pleasing and easier to peel and cook.

It looks like a light brown ginger-root with highlights of yellow, red, or

purple. About 10 cm in length and 5 cm in diameter, the Canada potato is
available year-round but is in its prime between October and April.

It is best when nipped by the frost, with flavour ranging from slightly sweet
to nutty; it has been compared to water chestnuts and jicama (often referred
to as the “Mexican potato”) with a juicy, crisp, off-white flesh.

They bruise easily and can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks
if they are wrapped in a cloth and placed in a sealable plastic bag. They
don’t freeze or can well.

A quick scrubbing will clean off the rough skin but maximum nutritive value
will come from having their skins on. Like potatoes, they darken quickly
when exposed to the air, so when peeling them they must be immersed in

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acidulated water. Rombauer and Becker and Root have the goods on
Jerusalem artichokes.

They cook faster in boiling water than their cousin the potato and will
quickly turn to mush. When cooked with the skins on, they will darken due
to their high iron content. Avoid the use of aluminum and cast-iron
cookware or oxidation will also result in discolouration.

But what to cook the Canada Potato with? Who better to ask than Oliver
Bartsch, chef to the Canadian Prime Minister with his expertise of Canadian
ingredients as he cooks at the heart of Canada?

“I find them to be very much like a potato or celeriac,” Bartsch notes from
the nation’s capital, “and I generally use them in the same fashion. With
their nutty flavour, I like to blanch and then roast them to bring that flavour
out further.

“I might also add roasted peanuts and hazelnuts to a puree of sunchokes and
pair them with chips of sunchoke. I match the hazelnut puree with venison
and the peanut one with a spicy Asian-influenced red snapper.

“The sunchoke can also be used like a potato pancake: grate it raw and add a
bit of grain flour like kamut or wild rice and eggs. I would call it ‘Sunchoke,
kamut, and rosemary pancake with a crabapple chokecherry butter and birch
syrup.’ Add a little back bacon and you have a truly Canadian breakfast.”

Italian, Canadian, French, American: whatever its name, the Jerusalem

artichoke is truly a world cuisine for breakfast.

Andrew Coppolino, andrew@tablescraps.ca, is a freelance writer based in

Kitchener, Ontario
—30—

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