Local Bounty: Jerusalem Artichokes

This week I picked up some Jerusalem artichokes at the O'Daniel farm. I have never tried Jerusalem artichokes and I actually didn't even know what they would look like when Seth and I went to pick them up. Well, they look like this:

They are actually a species of the sunflower plant. They are also called sunchokes or sun roots. These are the roots. They do not come from Jerusalem and they are not actually even an artichoke. Strange name, I know. You can eat these raw, sliced thinly and added to a salad, or they can be cooked. When eaten raw they had a hint of a carrot taste but other than that they were pretty bland, basically they could just add a little bit of a crunch to a salad. It was recommended by the O'Daniel that I slice them very thinly, add salt, pepper, and olive oil, and then roast them until they were soft. That is exactly what I did and the taste changed quite a bit. They tasted like a mix between a potato and carrot, similar to a parsnip. They were not bad at all, but I will probably pass on this one from now on. I am glad that we tried it though.