On new things under the sun

They say there's nothing new under the sun and one would think that was absolutely true of nature's bounty. But then the Americans started inventing new fruits, like pluots (a cross between a plum and and an apricot) and apriums (same, apparently, and no I am not kidding). Actually the Etruscans did it first, with broccoli, and the Japanese have a sort of mania for breeding different citrus fruits with nuanced but highly prized / priced differences. So it's not just the Americans.

But with the odd silly exception it's rare that one comes across a truly new fruit or vegetable. Short of traveling to an exotic land, and not counting subtle variations on familiar fruits and veg, I thought I'd seen it all. At least, as far as fruit and vegetables go.

And then I encountered the sunchoke. It's probably been around since the dawn of time but to me it is a whole new vegetable. I've seen it on menus and assumed it was just an American name for something I'd eaten before. Like zucchini (courgette), eggplant (much more appetizing when it's called aubergine), or cilantro (coriander).

But lo! The sunchoke is its own distinct and wonderful vegetable. And it doesn't taste like anything else I've ever eaten. It looks, at least in the meal I was eating, like a knobbly potato. It tasted like a cross between a parsnip and a leek, and also at the same time completely different to those vegetables. Here's a picture of some sunchokes on a salad, which is how I first met them.

Apparently this startlingly exciting new vegetable is also known as a Jerusalem Artichoke - which rings a bell as something I may have read about in a Guardian recipe or ignored in Earth Natural Foods.

I'm still counting it as a new discovery. I see it on menus all the time here in sunny, healthy SoCal. And what a nice thing it is, to discover I'm not too old to have discovered all the good stuff  just yet. I wonder what other exciting foods there are out there. (Still not ready to embrace bone broth and kombucha though).