Artichoke
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Artichoke. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a name given to two very different, coarse, composite plants. The European or French artichoke is a coarse thistle-like plant with blue and white flowers. Portions of the large flower heads are pickled, cut for salads, or cooked and served like cauliflower. The globe variety is popular in the United States , chiefly in the milder climate of the south. The Jerusalem artichoke is a broad-leafed, coarse, wild sunflower, native in Canada and the upper Mississippi Valley. The tuberous roots were collected by the Indians for food. It has been introduced into some parts of Europe. In America artichokes have value as stock food. The tubers are fed chiefly to hogs. On the same principle that grain is scattered in straw to give hens the exercise of scratching, artichokes are planted in hog pastures for the pleasurable exercise they afford the hog in rooting, as well as for the small amount of potato-like food they supply.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a plant belonging to the order asteraceæ, or composites, the suborder tubuliferæ, and the section carduineæ, the same to which the thistles belong. It considerably resembles a huge thistle. The receptacle on which the florets are situated, and the fleshy bases of the scales are eaten. The modern Arabs consider the root as aperient, and the gum, which they term kunkirzeed, as an emetic. Artichokes were introduced into England early in the 16th century. The Jerusalem artichoke is not from Jerusalem, and is not an artichoke. It is an American sunflower (helianthus tuberosus). The word Jerusalem arose from a corruption of the Italian girasole, meaning "turner to the sun." The roots of this species are sometimes used as a substitute for potatoes.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The botany in both accounts still holds: the globe artichoke is a cultivated thistle (Cynara cardunculus), and the Jerusalem artichoke is still Helianthus tuberosus, still neither from Jerusalem nor an artichoke. What has changed is the American standing of both. Aiton's 1910 note that the tubers are 'fed chiefly to hogs' would puzzle a modern grocer: the Jerusalem artichoke was rebranded the 'sunchoke' for the produce trade in the 1960s and is now sold as a human vegetable prized for inulin rather than starch, while the globe artichoke became a serious California crop centred on Castroville, which named the young Marilyn Monroe its Artichoke Queen in 1948. The Arab remedies Collier's records in 1921 — the root as an aperient, the gum as an emetic — have dropped out of use.
Written for this edition, 2026.