Jerusalem!

Quite a surprising harvest of Jerusalem artichokes awaited us in the vegetable patch. I planted just eight little tubers last spring and didn’t really expect much. But some of them are seven or eight inches long. Makes a great soup!
It originates in North America and is a member of the sunflower family. The name is thought to be a corruption of the Italian for sunflower, ‘girasole’. Italian settlers having thought it was a sunflower.