Sunchoke harvest at a Port Sydney school becomes a learning experience

December 20, 2006

Pamela Steel
Special to the Star

Port Sydney, ONT.–Jerusalem artichokes are neither from Jerusalem, nor are they artichokes. These yummy tubers are native to North America and the plant, Helianthus tuberosus, is part of the sunflower family. The original Indian name translates to the more apt sunroot or sunchoke.

Wonderfully tasty, the white-fleshed tubers are sweet, nutty and crunchy when raw, milder and soft when poached. They can be roasted, cooked into soup, deep-fried into chips, ground into flour or simply sautéed with butter and garlic. Their nutritional profile is good: low in calories, high in iron and B vitamins. The starch in them is called inulin; it's one of the few starches that can be eaten with impunity by diabetics.

Over the past 400 years, sunchokes have enjoyed their moment in the, well ... sun. Early settlers cultivated them for their ease of growth and many culinary uses. This is the reason they are grown in the vegetable garden at V.K. Greer Memorial Public School in Port Sydney.

I know this garden. For the six years my children have been at this school, I've watched the students plant every spring. Then, in fall, I've seen kids wonder at the height of the sunflowers and marvel at the taste of beans snapped off the vine.

The garden and the sunchokes were planted a decade ago. Veteran teacher Bill Rantz has included them as part of his pioneer unit when teaching Grade 3, to investigate plant growth in Grade 4 and as a hands-on introduction to food production for any grade.

My own field-to-fork experience with Rantz's Grade 4 class started with harvesting the sunchokes. By the time we hit the garden, it was late November and we had to wait until the afternoon when the ground had thawed enough to dig. Sunchokes thrive on cold, not ready to be harvested until after at least one good frost.

When the kids get the hang of this culinary treasure hunt, they're uncovering mass networks of fat, knobby bulbs. They whoop and boast about their big finds. A 9-year-old asks: "Are you sure people were doing this hundreds of years ago?" They imagine life before supermarkets, when you ate what you raised.

Our harvest is given a good scrub and it's back to the classroom to taste something freshly grown. The kids crowd around, fresh-faced and ruddy-cheeked from the cold. Not one child has eaten a sunchoke before and every single taster likes it: "Tastes like carrots! Like parsnips! Mmm, mine tastes like candy!" One girl pipes up with: "It's like taking a bite out of history." The sunchokes are a hit.

Some of our harvest is sold to Rory Golden, executive chef at Deerhurst Resort, to raise money for next year's garden. Golden is a deeply serious professional chef, managing 65 cooks who produce 1,200 meals a day out of five kitchens. Yet he has never lost his sense of fun when it comes to working with unusual native foods. He harvests cattails from the golf course, buys pickled milkweed pods, grows wild leeks and apples on the property, produces maple syrup, and this year, started an apiary to produce his own honey.

Golden puts sunchokes on the menu when small producers come to him with their harvest or when he gets a group from out of the country wanting something uniquely Canadian. At a recent event, he used the chokes from a sous-chef's garden to make the salad featured in the recipe below.

They are easy to grow – invasive, in fact. Perhaps because they're native, they aren't troubled by pests or diseases and can produce five times the yield of potatoes. Delicious, nutritious and adaptable. Kids will eat them. And still they remain on the fringe. Is it just the polysyllabic name? The "What is that thing?" factor? Could be the price. Sunchokes can cost from $6.50 to $10 a pound.

Popular or not, sunchokes are worth a try. Purchase firm, fat bulbs that are free of bruises and sprouts, and eat them within a couple of days. They will keep for a few weeks, wrapped in a plastic bag in the crisper, but lose something with storage.

Sunchoke & Potato Soup

This hearty soup has a smooth flavour that Deerhurst executive chef Rory Golden customizes to suit different tastes with the addition of curry or herbs.

1 tbsp each: canola oil, unsalted butter
1 onion, halved, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled, chopped
3 cups whole milk
1 bay leaf
3 cups peeled, chopped sunchokes (about 1 lb/450 g), plus 4 sunchokes, sliced, for garnish
Salt + pepper to taste

In medium pot, heat canola oil and butter over medium-high. Add onion, garlic and potatoes. Cook, stirring with wooden spoon, until onions are soft, about 5 minutes. Add milk and bay leaf. Bring to simmer. Reduce heat to medium. Add sunchokes and simmer gently (do not boil) until potatoes are soft, about 30 minutes.

Purée in blender or food processor. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with sunchoke slices.

Makes 4 cups.

Warm Sunchoke & Smoked Chicken Salad

Also from Rory Golden. I buy smoked chicken at the supermarket deli counter. Golden served this salad of locally grown sunchokes, apples from the resort and Muskoka-grown shiitake mushrooms to clients wanting a uniquely Muskokan menu.

1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1 cup peeled, chopped sunchokes (about 6 oz/175 g)
1/2 cup stemmed, sliced shiitake mushrooms
1 large McIntosh apple, diced
1 tsp raspberry jam
2 tbsp raspberry vinegar
Salt + pepper to taste
4 cups mesclun greens
1 cup chopped smoked chicken

In large pan, heat canola oil on medium. Add onion and cook, stirring, until soft, about 3 minutes.

Add sunchokes and mushrooms; cook, stirring with wooden spoon, until mushrooms are softened, 3 to 5 minutes.

Stir in apple, jam and vinegar. Season with salt and pepper.

Divide greens among 4 plates. Top with chicken.

Drizzle hot sunchoke mixture over top.

Makes 4 servings.