The first asparagus

It's hard to say when asparagus is the "first" of the season, since you can buy it fresh at the grocery store all year. The asparagus for sale this week at the Metropolitan Market came from Baja Mexico with a Dole Corp. label attached. Our local backyard is bigger than it used to be. I sautéed the $3 bunch with garlic, butter and sea salt--a simple method and the leftover spears are good in salad.

It's kind of a shame we've lost much of the anticipation and pleasure from eating strictly seasonal produce.  Back when farm families grew fresh vegetables, meals were planned around whatever was abundant in the garden.  For example, in Pennsylvania we would have all-you-can-eat summer suppers and a pot of boiled corn was the only thing on the table. Everyone ate buttered cobs until they were stuffed with corn. I can just hear kids whining these days, is that all we're having for dinner?

Asparagus is the vegetable that really says Spring. Once upon a time, I was a young housefrau in Germany and I'd bicycle to Zweibrucken with a few pfennigs in my pocket to buy something for dinner.  Baby Amanda was perched on her seat tied to the back of the bike and my grocery basket was balanced in front.

The arrival of the first April asparagus at the German market was an almost religious event. I remember standing back just watching, because those German lady shoppers were serious about getting the best and freshest.  It was expensive, so special dinners were featured with just white asparagus. Like rhubarb, I think it was considered a spring health tonic as well as a delicious vegetable. The Germans of my grandparent's generation had food rituals about what they ate and when and how.

This was the first white asparagus I ever saw, and to be honest those thick stalks looked as pale and unappetizing as uncooked weisswurst. I wasn't much of a cook back then, and the only asparagus I ever had was thin and green, so I thought it was a different type completely. Later I found out the Germans have a special labor-intensive technique to get their white asparagus.

When the spears emerge from the ground sunlight turns the stalks green. About 6 inches of dirt is piled on top of the plants so that the stalks stay underground. Even smothered like that, they grow at the same rate as an uncovered green stalk. When the tip just breaks the soil surface, the farm worker probes under ground with his special knife to cut the stalk.

 A typical German asparagus dinner is...

white!