My plants survived the cold winter in pots and just make their comeback, the tops are still quite small.
Yacon is as easy to grow as the so called Jerusalem artichoke, but it
tastes way better. The yields are ridiculously high and unlike the
Jerusalem artichoke, the tubers are smooth and easy to clean. The knobby
part inside is for replanting and the longish tubers which grow around
that are eaten.
Once the plant flowers it dies off, it is time to
harvest as their sweetness is at the maximum. Yacon is a perennial
plant. If you don’t dig it up it will resprout.
If pealed, yacon can
be eaten raw, is nice in any vegetable stew or with the Sunday roast
lots of possibilities for the inventive cook!. Yacon can be made into a
sweet syrup which doesn’t wreck your teeth.
Yacon is seen as a super
food and a weight loss aid. The starches you find in Yacon are not the
usual ones eaten in potatoes or bread, they have a unrponouncable name,
and are similar to those found in Jerusalem artichokes.
The leaf tea is used to fight diabetes.
Links:
Health Benefits:
Yacon Food-Medicine
Tropical Plant Database
Organic Facts
Yacon leaf tea:
natural news
Recipe for Yacon syrup and other recipes:
Yacon Syrup
Yacon syrup (in dept info)
The guardian
This is about the commercial production of yacon syrup: http://cipotato.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/1919-Yacon_Syrup.pdf
Spanish resources:
Gastronomia tradiciona Altoandina
Las Buenas Migas