We never thought about them.\u00a0 All winter, those pounds of Jerusalem Artichokes slept snugly underground just where they had grown the summer before, slowly expanding into the knobby whitish tubers I finally dug up a few weeks back.\u00a0 Even if this hadn’t been an unseasonably warm spring, we would have had to deal with them soon.\u00a0 Each of the probably 100 or more I harvested would have sprouted and grown into a new plant, each vying for space in a small bed that would have become so crowded none would have grown well.\u00a0 Even if I’d only dug them up and thrown them away, I would have had to do something with them.\u00a0\u00a0 Clever, the idea of pickling them.\u00a0 What a good way to use many at once.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
We imagined the job would be worse than it really was and had been putting it off for some time.\u00a0 Digging the tubers was actually fun, like searching for buried treasure.\u00a0 I plunged my garden fork into the ground and turned over the soil and as if by a miracle, the artichokes appeared.\u00a0 Sometimes I unearthed a mass of ‘chokes all at the same time, some as big as four or five inches from end to end and two to three inches across, as big or bigger than any I’ve ever seen in a store or market.\u00a0 They look a little like the raw ginger you buy in the store, though much knobbier and wrinkled, not smooth, and whitish.<\/p>\n
I soon filled a bucket with seven or eight pounds of the things which I took to the utility sink in our laundry room to wash the soil off each tuber.\u00a0 Then to the kitchen for the worst part: cutting off unusable bits from every single artichoke and scrubbing each one to remove the rest of the dirt from the cracks and crevices.\u00a0 I like but don’t love Jerusalem Artichokes.\u00a0 They have a pleasant nutty crispiness and are\u00a0 good raw (they taste and feel like turnip) or cooked like hash browns.\u00a0 I think they are even healthy.\u00a0 It’s just the challenge of cleaning the knobby things that keeps us from thinking, regularly, “Hey, let’s pop out to the garden and gather a few Jerusalem Artichokes.”<\/p>\n
We put the cleaned and sliced tubers in brine where they luxuriated for a day.\u00a0 We used two different recipes, one with turmeric and one without.\u00a0 The turmeric brine-soaked ‘chokes will end up being a sweet, bread-and-butter type of pickle.\u00a0 The other will be a tangy, garlicky, ginger flavor.<\/p>\n
The next night we cooked the pickling mixture.\u00a0 Have you ever smelled cooking vinegar?\u00a0 The pungent aroma can penetrate the stuffiest nose and filled our apartment with a sour coziness.\u00a0 Throwing in spices, garlic, ginger and hot pepper made the witch’s brew almost dangerous.\u00a0 We dared to sample the concoction which tasted good though it made us wink.\u00a0\u00a0 After draining and rinsing the chokes, then pouring the mixtures over each, we put the two gallon jars in the fridge and waited.\u00a0 After a week, they tasted good.\u00a0 After two weeks, really good.\u00a0 After three weeks we shared a pint\u00a0 jar of each with one of our sons and his wife, experts in the art of fermentation.\u00a0 They were impressed.\u00a0 Delicious!\u00a0 Why hadn’t anyone thought of this, they asked?\u00a0 What a great idea!\u00a0 These would really sell.<\/p>\n
Next time you drop by (and please let it be soon), slip into the kitchen, open the fridge and sneak a couple of Jerusalem Artichoke pickles.\u00a0 You’ll be surprised how crisp and savory-tart they are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We never thought about them.\u00a0 All winter, those pounds of Jerusalem Artichokes slept snugly underground just where they had grown the summer before, slowly expanding into the knobby whitish tubers I finally dug up a few weeks back.\u00a0 Even if … Continue reading