Some vegetables arrive with a straightforward name. The jerusalem artichoke is not one of them. It is knobbly, a little odd-looking, and it is neither from Jerusalem nor a relative of the artichoke you might be picturing. What it is, once you get past the name: one of the sweetest, nuttiest tubers you can roast all winter. Here is the headline. If you have walked past these at a stall because you did not know what to do with them, this is the year to pick some up.
What it actually is
The jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) is the edible tuber of a species of sunflower native to North America. You will also see it sold as sunchoke, sunroot or topinambour, and sunchoke is probably the friendliest of the lot.
So where does the name come from? Not Jerusalem, and not the globe artichoke, which it is not related to at all. The "artichoke" part was borrowed because the cooked flesh has a nutty, faintly artichoke-like flavour. The "jerusalem" part is a lovely bit of linguistic wonkiness: it is a corruption of the Italian girasole, meaning sunflower (literally "turns to the sun"). English speakers heard girasole, reshaped it into a word they recognised, and the sunflower quietly became a holy city. The plant, meanwhile, grows tall like the sunflower it is.
The tuber itself looks a bit like a knobbly, pale ginger root. Raw, it is crisp and clean, closer to a water chestnut. Cook it and it changes character completely, turning soft, sweet and nutty.
How to choose at the stall
You are looking for firm and heavy in the hand, with taut, wrinkle-free skin. That is the whole test, really. Give one a gentle squeeze: it should feel solid, not spongy.
Leave behind any that are soft, shrivelled, sprouting, or showing dark or mouldy patches. Those are past their best and will disappoint you at the chopping board.
A note on the knobs: smoother, rounder tubers are easier to clean, so if you are scrubbing a big batch, they save time. But the gnarlier ones are just as good to eat. They only ask for a firmer scrub in the crevices. This is a good moment to talk to whoever grew them. Ask what came in this week, and whether one variety is running sweeter than another. Growers love that question, and you will learn more in thirty seconds than any label can tell you.
How to store them
Jerusalem artichokes keep well, but they dehydrate faster than potatoes, so a little care pays off. Keep them unwashed in a paper bag in the crisper, where they will hold for up to about two weeks. Wash only when you are ready to cook: cleaning them early just speeds up the drying.
Resist the urge to leave them out on the bench for days. They soften sooner at room temperature, and the skin, where a lot of the flavour lives, is the first thing to go.
How to cook them
First, the prep. Peeling is optional. The skin is thin and edible, so a good scrub with a vegetable brush (get into the knobs) is usually all you need. If you do peel, or slice them ahead, know that the cut surfaces brown quickly. Drop the pieces into a bowl of water with a squeeze of lemon and they will stay pale until you cook them.
The simple one: roasted
This is the method to start with, and honestly the one you will keep coming back to. Halve or quarter the tubers, toss with olive oil and salt, and roast hot, around 200C, until they are deeply golden and tender with crisp, caramelised edges. The natural sweetness concentrates and the flavour turns nutty and almost buttery. Fold the roasted pieces through a grain salad, or serve them alongside a roast the way you would potatoes.
The slightly fancier one: velouté soup
For something silkier, make a velouté. Sweat the tubers gently with a chopped onion, then simmer in stock until everything is soft. Blend until completely smooth, loosen with a little milk or cream, and you have a pale, elegant soup with a sweet, nutty depth. Finish each bowl with a squeeze of lemon: it lifts the whole thing and keeps it from feeling heavy.
And if you want to show off the raw side, shave the tubers into thin, crisp slices (a mandoline makes this easy), then dress them with lemon and good oil. They bring a fresh crunch and a clean, nutty note to a winter slaw or salad.
One cooking tip worth passing on: acid and warm spices suit these tubers beautifully. That squeeze of lemon in the roasting tray or the soup, or a pinch of fennel or cumin, brings out the sweet, nutty side and keeps a rich dish feeling bright. They are boldly flavoured, so it is worth cooking a small batch first to find the balance you like, then scaling up once you have it.
When jerusalem artichokes are in season in Victoria
Treat the jerusalem artichoke as an autumn-to-winter vegetable here. Local harvest runs from late autumn onward, which is when the tubers are at their sweetest and most likely to be sitting on a farmers' market stall. Because they store so well, you will often find them stretching right across the colder months, so there is plenty of winter cooking to be done. They sit neatly alongside the other cold-weather roots and brassicas in our guide to what is in season in Melbourne in winter.
Why fresh and local is worth it
A tuber this dependent on freshness rewards buying it close to where it grew. Fresher tubers are firmer, sweeter and store better at home, and buying them from the person who dug them up means you can ask which variety to choose and how they like to cook it. That is the quiet pleasure of eating with the season: better produce, and a conversation that comes with it. If you are new to shopping this way, our notes on how to shop a farmers market and why shop at farmers markets are a good place to start. And if the jerusalem artichoke has won you over, it is in good company with the likes of leeks and cavolo nero at this time of year.
Yarraville Farmers Market is a monthly daytime market at Bassett Reserve, where Yarraville, Kingsville and West Footscray meet. Our first market is Sunday 27 September 2026, 8am to 1pm, and we run on the fourth Sunday of every month after that. To hear what will be on the stalls, join the Market Matters mailing list.
And if you grow, dig or make something worth sharing, we would love to hear from you. Local growers and makers can become a foundation stallholder and help shape the market from day one.
More Market Finds
The Market Finds series digs into one great ingredient at a time. Here is the rest of the shelf:
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