Strange looking veggies

[Alice Abbott]

The kids have just come back from their usual "rounds" of the village with a bag of very strange vegetables. They are not foraged, they watched them being dug up from the vegetable patch in their French friend Robert's garden. They were told they are "cron de japon" although they may have mangled that on their way home, they look like I imagine little unicorns horns ought to look (twirled and bobbly), they are a lovely ivory white once I've washed them, appear not to need peeling and smell vaguely of nuts. I think they might be a sort of Jerusalem artichoke. Does anyone have any ideas and how I can serve them please? And if they are good can I grow more in the same way as potatoes?

[Millymollymandy]

They are Crosne so now you can google and see what to do with them. Durgan on this site grew them too so have a look at his posting in the veg section.

I used to see them for sale when we lived on the other side of the country but they are obviously not known here in Brittany. I understand they are related to Jerusalem artichokes so unfortunately due to 'gastric problems' with that family of veg I don't dare try one!

I did read there were rather fiddly to peel but I wonder if that is really necessary? I hope you enjoy them.

[Alice Abbott]

Yes, those are they!

Peel them? Are you crazy? Veggies do not get peeled in this household, just scrubbed if they are lucky.

So they can be steamed with herbs, lemon and butter tonight. I hope they are good, Luca says Robert had a HUGE pile and I can imagine many more coming this way..

[Millymollymandy]

Alice - the peeling was on a French website and I thought when I read it - you MUST be joking! Given the size and shape of them it would take you all day to do one portion!

[Alice Abbott]

I can just imagine Robert sat there with his little vegetable peeler. Not! Anyway, these have scrubbed up beautifully.

We have a friend staying now who is camped out in what will be our dining room and making himself very useful. He and Mack are upstairs in a dustcloud bashing away at the wall, trying to expose what appears to be a fireplace directly above the ground floor one. They will be starving and parched dry by dinner time. So it will be rabbit, mushroom and carrot pie with very lightly steamed peppered cabbage and crosnes for dinner tonight. I've only recently discovered the joys of steaming veggies so I'll try a few experiments with them - they look hard! I'll report back on what they are like.

They'll probably demolish plenty of blackberry and apple wine too. Friends brought us an enormous bag of lemons from southern France earlier this autumn and they are now either juiced and frozen into ice cubes, made into marmalade or sliced and stored in jars. Pia, Luca and I are crazy about citron presse so will will be happy too!