Sammy from Cambodia
Sammy is from Cambodia. He drives a Berlingo with yellow seat covers. He has special plants from Cambodia which he tries to grow. They got damaged by overnight frost. He was not happy about that. He sucked his teeth and smiled a sad smile.
I bought some jerusalem artichokes. I bought them for the flowers. I don't think I will eat them, since the tubers are composed of inulin, which is extremely dificult to digest, and they are said to give you wind out of the back vent.
What's in a name?
If it's not an artichoke and it's not from Jerusalem, you ask, where in the world did the name come from? One theory holds Jerusalem is a corruption of the Italian girasola, meaning "turning toward the sun," a reference to the sunflower. Another theory involves another garbling of the Ter Neusen, Netherlands area where the sunchoke was originally introduced to Europe. Artichoke comes from the Arabic al-khurshuf, meaning thistle, another reference to appearance of the above-ground foliation. These days, you'll find them marketed under the less foreign sounding name of sunchokes. Whether you refer to it as Jerusalem artichoke, sunroot or sunchoke, the tubers have a delicate flavor that is slightly sweet and nut-like, similar to jicama and water chestnuts.
The edible portion of this member of the sunflower family is the tuber or swollen end of an underground stem, which in some respects resembles a potato. However, unlike most starchy vegetables, the principal storage carbohydrate in sunchokes immediately after harvest is inulin rather than starch. When consumed the inulin is converted in the digestive tract to fructose rather than glucose, which can be tolerated by diabetics.
No comments:
Post a Comment