Sunflowers as Artichokes

It seems like the internet is buzzing lately over the Baker Creek video showing how to roast immature sunflower heads in the manner of corn on the cob. Lots of people are trying it and posting their own videos. Personally, I doubt I would ever use a nearly mature head in that manner since the flavor is just so so at that stage and honestly I'd rather have the mature seeds. Still, it got me thinking and digging through my files. This little gem was tucked away in there. It's a small video on how to use the very young buds as you would artichoke hearts.

For me, this holds a lot of value. I don't really like the headache of working with artichokes, nor did they grow easily where I was living when I was able to have a garden. That was doubly not worth it for me since I only use them once in a long while. Maybe twice in a whole season (if that). Having an easy to grow alternative that if I don't get around to using it, still produces something useful is a real boon. Anyway, I thought I would share in case anyone else had been seeing the other video floating around and it had them curious.

Any idea if they could be home canned or frozen? My usual use for artichoke hearts is on pizza, which tends to be a winter food.  I'm actually growing sunflowers, but they're very late as the first seeds I tried to start were duds. I think I've got a few flowers coming, but I do want to save some seed.

I can't speak from experience, but I suspect they would fall apart if you can them. The video notes that they were made tender in around 6 minutes total, so the time involved in processing them would probably break them down too much. Freezing is worth trying. It might also be worth the trouble to try to ferment them as a preservation method.