By Nina M. Scott and
Katy van Geel
Nina Scott and Gail Gaustad were the only ones in our class who chose to feature a particular product — Scott chose potatoes and Gaustad decided on the rather startling combination of Jerusalem artichokes (also known as sunchokes) and sugar beets. What could she possibly be planning for lunch?
When our group gathered, a large, attractive basket of root vegetables greeted us: carrots, turnips, parsnips, celeriac, etc.
Gaustad served a medley of these roasted, a creamy sunchoke soup as well as a frittata thereof, buttered peas with cubes of boiled celeriac, shredded carrots, pickled and gingered beets.
She grows both sugar beets and sunchokes in her garden. Her beets (grown from seeds) were very small — she held aloft one example which was about the size of an adolescent radish — but the sunchokes, with their 7-foot-tall stalks, have a tendency to take over the garden and she warned against planting them. They are native to Massachusetts and not related to artichokes at all.
Gaustad had a friend visiting while our group was there. She was from northwest Ohio whose fertile, flat lands are ideal for sugar beets, and at harvest time, trucks pile four-story-high mountains of beets in front of the factories.
An Ohio beet is about the size of a football. The smell of the refining is not pleasant; a molasses-like goo — a by-product — is used on sidewalks against ice and snow.
Gaustad’s delicious sunchoke soup, on a trial run, had turned out rather gray and unappetizing; her husband, John, counseled, “Throw it away.” So she did. But the version she served us was excellent.
Shortly afterward, a New Yorker restaurant critique featured a hip new place that was offering a sunchoke bisque, and the latest issue of Cook’s Illustrated also featured sunchokes.
Little did we know how cutting-edge Gaustad is!
Gail Gaustad’s
Sunchoke Soup
This recipe is adapted from simplyrecipes.com.
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup chopped onions
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, chopped
2 pounds sunchokes, peeled and cut into chunks
1 quart chicken or vegetable stock
1 cup heavy cream
Salt and black pepper
Minced parsley
Heat the butter in a soup pot over medium-high heat and cook the onions and celery until soft, about 5 minutes. Do not brown them. Add the garlic and sauté for 1 minute.
Sprinkle with salt.
Add the sunchokes and the stock to the pot and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low, and simmer, covered, until the sunchokes begin to break down, 45-60 minutes.
Using an immersion blender or (if you like your soup chunkier, a potato masher), purée the soup.
Add heavy cream, then salt and pepper to taste.
Sprinkle with minced parsley and serve.
Nina Scott is a retired UMass professor of Spanish. She has lived in Amherst since 1968. Katy van Geel is a retired librarian and CPA, and moved to Amherst in 2007.