At last! Asparagus!
Albert Sonnenfeld -- International Herald Tribune
BRENTWOOD, California Spring comes late to much of Europe. The
continental cloud cover begins to break up, and a timid sun, poor shadow
of itself, makes its apparition at last. "Green, how I love you green,"
Garcia Lorca wrote.
How ironic therefore that thick white asparagus, the ultimate in
seasonal produce most celebratory of a continental spring, depends for
its characteristic whiteness on being reburied to be carefully sheltered
from the sun's pernicious rays (and the resulting attendant production
of chlorophyll).
That makes for a labor-intensive (hence pricey) addition to the farmer's
market basket.
We in California are blessed with what I call extended seasonality, even
if the mutations (to ensure longer shelf life and visual enhancement) of
strawberries and tomatoes I find in the Santa Monica market these days
are beginning to erode my faith.
So far the wonderful fresh white asparagus offerings of our farmers'
markets have restored my wavering credo! However, many of the best chefs
rely on imports from Holland in order to be the first on their block to
offer the thick white beauties; it's a bit like the Beaujolais nouveau
race in November.
My secret, as an inveterate asparagomaniac and a charter Slow Foodie, is
to check out chefs with Germanic surnames (rare in L.A.) for good (even
if imported) asparagus.
Better yet, make a "Spargel Pilgerfahrt," a pilgrim's quest for perfect
white asparagus, to Alsace or to Germany in season (May through June).
To be sure, the EU has created a flavorless downmarket Euroworld, a vast
supermarket of formerly complex edibles standardized under the vigilant
eye of agrobureaucrats.
Even in Euroworld the aristocratic white asparagus of Central Europe
holds up the banner of seasonality.
Like the fragile translucent skin of a Habsburg princess, the sheltered
asparagus retains its pearly whiteness. Legend has it that harvesting is
best done in the moonlight!
Germans have a saying, "Spargelweiss und Erdbeerrot" (asparagus white
and strawberry red). Well, the strawberries may still look red, but too
often their flavor has gone with the (year-round) wind.
The asparagus of legend is always white, never green, and its season is
scarily finite.
In antiquity the bride was garlanded with asparagus and the Egyptians
placed it as a viaticum in the Pharaoh's tomb. Plato praised its
essential flavor; Emperor Augustus sweetened it with honey; Arabian
women prayerfully fed it to their men as an aphrodisiac.
As I grow older, I think enviously of the French philosopher, Fontenelle
(1657-1757), who attributed his centenary longevity to the
"blood-purification of his annual asparagus cure!"
So this spring I shall make my annual pilgrimage to this tasty source of
eternal youth moving from Dresden in the East to Bad Godesberg in the
West and ending in the lovely Black Forest town of Freiburg.
There the 15th annual "Spargelfest" is in full swing in the suburb of
Opingen: 3.5 tons per day peeled, cooked and eaten.
On a recent spring trip I had asparagus twice daily for a fortnight. I
had it with melted butter, with Hollandaise, with Westphalian ham, with
smoked salmon, and best of all dipped in extra-virgin olive oil from
Lucca.
I learned from the "Spargelmeister" that to use utensils was oh so
petit-bourgeois. Asparagus etiquette dictates holding each stalk 'twixt
thumb and index finger, dipping in oil and ingesting slowly bite by
delicate bite.
(Albert Sonnenfeld directs the series "Arts of the Table: Studies in
Culinary History" for Columbia University Press.)