Jerusalem Artichokes

Neighbour Gail, up the back, has a huge permaculture garden.
She supplies us with the freshest salad vegetables and herbs on a weekly basis.
She is also growing a few unusual things.
One, for us anyway, is Jerusalem Artichokes.
Having not come across these before we did some research on how to cook them and found out that they are a native plant of North America. The tuberous root is the part of the plant eaten.

We also read that they contain inulin which cannot be broken down by the human digestive system and this can cause flatulence.
In fact Gerard's Herbal, printed in 1621, quotes the English planter John Goodyer on Jerusalem artichokes as saying "which way soever they be dressed and eaten, they stir and cause a filthy loathsome stinking wind within the body, thereby causing the belly to be pained and tormented, and are a meat more fit for swine than men."
Believe us this is more than true!
Be warned!