However, this most recent e-mail opened with news of his asparagus bed. Doing well, apparently, and giving the best asparagus in the world of course, though the slugs are causing sleepless nights. Now, Harry is young and wealthy. He knows the ways of the business world and has the tough streak needed to function in it. He also takes a good chunk out of life and is equally partial to a New York nightclub or a weekend’s ice-climbing. So, this e-mail was a new twist. (By the way, one of the many methods used by organic growers to deal with slugs is to crawl around at dusk, snipping them in half with decently sharp scissors. Now, that takes character. Good preparation for the cut-throat world of business, I would think.)
I tell this story to illustrate the fact that gardening, especially the growing of vegetables, is becoming fashionable, infecting people’s imaginations like some sort of virulent contagion. I have been told by people who give talks about vegetable cultivation that the audience is growing and the age profile is dropping alarmingly. Encouragingly, I should probably say. It is surely a bit ironic that while we cram our modern cities with hideous shoebox apartment blocks, those who have access to land, even a tiny piece of earth to dig, are turning to the ancient activity of growing food. There is a different focus this time round, however. Sure, people are growing a few spuds and onions, but there is greater emphasis on speciality and ‘heirloom’ vegetables, on the varieties that you can’t get in shops, as well as on those vegetables that need to be eaten very fresh and which are therefore usually in poor condition by the time they appear in a shop. Even where potatoes are being grown, the focus is on early varieties that are immeasurably better to eat when freshly dug. This new gardening is more about a love of food than saving on the household budget.
In a sense there is a new model being created for the kitchen garden, where the old staples are being replaced by vegetables further up the hierarchy; higher up the social ladder, one might say. Opinion on the aristocracy of vegetables may vary, but in almost everyone’s list you will find asparagus. In a rapidly growing minority, you will also find seakale. Both asparagus and seakale require a commitment of time and energy that gives a return that can’t be measured in volume, only in depth of pleasure. This makes them more than a mere luxury, because they can only be had through work and careful attention. And I say this as someone who doesn’t garden but who envies those who engage in this primal pastime.
It is ironic that, for such a classy vegetable, an asparagus bed is not much to look at during its productive season. The beautiful shoots poke their heads up, quickly grow to a size worth picking and eating, and then they’re gone, cut down and off to the kitchen to make someone’s day. Your typical asparagus bed, therefore, is a brown patch of earth with a mixture of a few short juvenile spears and some long grassy stalks, the ones that were never fat enough to pick, waving in the breeze.
The first time I saw an asparagus bed, however, it was a thing of beauty indeed. The bed was in its first year and Ultan had sensibly picked none of the shoots for eating, instead allowing them all to grow as they wished. The spears had grown to be long, delicate fronds, almost 2 metres (6.5 feet) high, and they were a pretty sight. Letting the asparagus grow would strengthen the plant below ground and set it up for good cropping in later years. The following year, he did it again, though I suspect he cheated a little this time, sneaking the occasional tea-time treat. We finally got some for Paradiso in the third year, although he picked for a fortnight only. It was worth the wait. Fresh asparagus has an intensity of flavour that might shock a palate used to pale supermarket imitations.
Freshly cut asparagus, from a variety grown for flavour as well as for yield, is indeed the king among aristocrats. It sets a benchmark for the flavour of other vegetables. How often do you hear or read that a certain vegetable has a hint of asparagus? Usually it is said in hope or bluff more than truth. And yes, good asparagus does have an element of primal green in its complex and intense flavour. It also has a definite earthy sweetness that leaks easily after picking, which is one of the best reasons to buy locally grown asparagus when it is available.
Asparagus has a proud history. It has been cultivated for close to forever, at least as far back as Roman times, and was produced on a large scale around Venice in the sixteenth century. All that time, and continuing today, it has been the jewel in the vegetable market of every culture lucky enough to be able to grow it, and smart enough to embrace it. It is shocking, then, to think of how, in Ireland, it went from being the most exclusive exotic to the mundane in what seemed like the vegetable equivalent of the speed of light. As well as shocking, it is perhaps a wry reflection on the values of a newly rich society.
Asparagus certainly played no part in the Ireland in which I grew up. Years later, it was rumoured to be occasionally available in the finest restaurants. Or, you might come across it on your holidays in France. (If, that is, you were the sort to take holidays anywhere other than the nearest beach.) There may have followed a short time when Spanish asparagus appeared in good greengrocers (remember them?) for a short season and at a high price.
If there were such a time, it was brief and quickly shoved aside by the scenario of mediocre asparagus on the shelves all year round. Usually European in origin for the traditional six- or eight-week season of May to June, for the rest of the year it is imported from Peru. So, before we even had a chance to divide ourselves into those who could afford or appreciate asparagus and those who couldn’t or wouldn’t, the beautiful vegetable has been reduced to a bog-standard ubiquitous imitator. Think about this: has anyone ever gushed excitedly to you on a cold winter’s morning about the amazing asparagus they had for dinner the night before, and which they bought cheaply at Tesco? Not likely.
One of the finest qualities of asparagus as a crop is the way it resolutely sticks to its seasonal pattern. By the same token, one of the worst qualities of the people purchasing for supermarkets is their myopic belief that you, the punter, will only be interested in a vegetable if it is in the same place on the same shelf every day of the year. And going cheap. When almost all vegetables have been manipulated, teased and tricked into lengthening their productive seasons, the few that have remained unbendable hold a special place in the hearts of those who enjoy the pleasure of taking part in a feast that passes by briefly, and only once a year. And I think that, deep down or otherwise, that’s most of us.
If it is true that there is a rebirth in the art of growing food, there may yet be another heyday for asparagus, and a better one. The smartest gardeners will take the trouble to make an asparagus bed a part of their future. When this happens, it should go a long way to helping us to see asparagus as the outrageously bountiful vegetable it is when in season. Whether you grow your own or have access to a decent crop in late spring, do try to feast on it at least a couple of times while it is around. I mean really feast on it – cook a couple of kilos and call it dinner, served with some melted butter and a few new spuds if you need the carbs.
In recipes for asparagus, you will often find references to thin and fat spears, and many food writers seem to favour thin ones. I don’t really get this, unless you are after a very delicate flavour. I rarely am. A good spear of asparagus should have the thickness of your little finger, at least, and is often better if it is the size of the next one along. At this size, the flesh inside has a juicy, nutty sweetness that is balanced by the texture of the skin and its green, almost grassy, flavour. Thin asparagus spears, however, can be fantastic in salads or strewn over softly cooked eggs, especially if the asparagus is raw or merely introduced to boiling water for a few seconds. A simple way of approaching this is to think about the proportion of skin to flesh. The thin skin of asparagus coats the sweetly succulent flesh with a mildly astringent, truly green flavour. At a certain point, there is a perfect balance, and it’s not at the skinny end of the scale.
There is, too, disagreement about peeling the stalks. Here again, I go for the simple life, and rarely peel at all. Simply snap the spear just above the point where it changes colour. However, if the spears are very fat or it is obvious that the skin is tough, then peeling is the only solution. And it is worth it, because the flesh inside is usually still tender and juicy. Never say never.
There