Thayer is reserved writer. He teaches foraging classes, and he writes like someone accustomed to teaching newbies: simple sentences and a calm style. So when I got to this paragraph in the chapter on Jerusalem Artichoke I laughed out loud.
If jerusalem-artichokes are eaten when they are full of inulin, they will cause horrendous gas and sometimes diarrhea in many individuals-- unless they are very well cooked. You might not have read "horrendous" loud enough; few people will ever experience worse flatulence. The Dakota in Minnesota relegated jerusalem-artichoke to the status of starvation food "from dread of its flatulent qualities," and many modern foragers avoid it for the same reason. Indeed, in certain circles this tuber has earned the uncouth but accurate name of fartichoke (Nature's Garden p. 419).
I just ran across your storage blog, and I feel I have to comment here. This is an accurate description of the effects.
ReplyDeleteI would, personally, have described it not as "horrendous", though, but "astonishing" since on the one occasion I ate the things the effect went entirely beyond bad and well into the realm of the amazing and hilarious. The experience of having a single fart lasting for more than five continuous seconds, was entirely new to me and has never been replicated since then (though it was replicated many times after eating the things, for about a day).