Asparagus season in the UK very short, going from only May until June. Of course, these days we are no longer a slave to the seasons and can have fresh asparagus that has been grown in Peru or Kenya whenever we like. I love the stuff, but I do feel that our food loses some if its magic when seasons no longer matter. It is for this reason I only buy British asparagus.
Asparagus has been eaten in Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome and has been loved in France for many centuries, and it is the carefully cultivated and selected French type of asparagus that made its way to Britain in the seventeenth century, a time of great ‘vegetable improvement’, and it is still grown here today. This does not mean that prior to this date we did not eat it or try to cultivate it.
The etymology of asparagus is interesting – many people think that it was called sparrow grass, but the upper class thought it a vulgar term and subtly changed its name to asparagus to make it sound more posh. This is not quite true: it actually began life as asparagus coming from Mediæval Latin, then it was shortened to sparage in Late Old English and then further modified to asperages in Middle English. It was anglicised to sperach or sperage in the 16thcentury, but strangely it was officially spelled as asparagus to be in line with Latin. The word asparagus became associated with “stiffness and pedantry”, and the “folk-etymologi[s]ed” sparrow grass arose in reaction to these Latin throwbacks. All this information came from the wonderful Online Etymological Dictionary. I love the Old English word – eorðnafela – sounds like some kind of elf queen from a Tolkien book.
There are three main types of asparagus which all come from the same plant: there are the common all-green tender spears that have very good flavour, and then there is white asparagus, made by ‘forcing’ the spears to grow in the absence of light by earthing up around and over tips. These are not typically grown in Britain, though you do spot them from time to time, though they have usually come from Holland or Belgium, where white asparagus is popular. Lastly, there is lavender-tipped asparagus which is simply white asparagus that has been allowed the see the sun again and just colour slightly. White and lavender-tipped are much more fibrous than the green but have a much more delicate flavour.
Asparagus is also infamous for a certain side-effect after it has been eaten and digested: the distinctive smell it leaves in our urine, which is liked by some, but hated by others:
[Asparagus] cause a filthy and disagreeable smell in the urine, as everybody knows.
Louis Lemery, Treatise of All Sorts of Food, 1702
…all night long after a dinner at which I had partaken of [asparagus], they played (lyrical and coarse in their jesting as the fairies in Shakespeare’s Dream) at transforming my chamber pot into a vase of aromatic perfume.
Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Times, 1913
[Proust always overdid things – have you ever read his description of madeleines?]
The chemical in question is called asparagusic acid, though not everyone has the ability to produce it (though most do) and not everyone has the ability to smell it (though most can).
Preparing Asparagus.
It is very straight-forward to prepare asparagus. You first need to remove the woody part at the base of the stem. You can do this with a knife, but this involves guess-work, so it is easier to break the spears one at a time because they have a natural snap point where the woodiness lessens. You can trim the ends of course if you want to be fancy. If you have very thin young spears, you may not have to snap them at all. Along the stem of the plant there are strange little leaves that lie flat against the stem; you can remove these if you like, but I tend not to unless the spears are particularly thick.
Asparagus and Eggs
Asparagus needs little cooking: just a few minutes steaming is required. Traditionally it is cooked in a tall asparagus pan so that the spears can be boiled upright. Here’s how I like to cook mine – it shows off the flavour of asparagus cooked simply.
Prepare your spears and place them in a pan in just a few millimetres of salted boiling water. Cover so that the asparagus part-boils and part-times. Check if they are cooked by probing the thickest part of a spear – it should be nice and tender. Asparagus spears of a middling thickness will take no longer than four minutes, and will most likely be done in three. Once cooked, Remove the spears and keep them warm, whilst you return the pan to the heat and whisk in a few cubes of butter and reduce to just a couple of tablespoons. Season with salt (if needed) and black pepper.
Fact about Asparagus
What do salty soil, smelly urine and well-rotted manure have in common? All are part of the experience of growing and eating asparagus, the first harbinger of spring in the vegetable kingdom.
Asparagus is one of three vegetables common in North American cuisine that comes from a perennial plant (along with artichokes and rhubarb). Once established, the harvest begins almost as soon as the plants emerge from dormancy each spring. When the ground defrosts, the massive underground root system pushes out the edible spears at a rate of 6 inches or more each day
1. It takes three years from seed to harvest.
Once they get going, asparagus plants can be cropped each spring for 15 years or more, but the spears start out the diameter of pencil lead in year one. The mini-spears eventually grow into a ferny, waist-high canopy which feeds the underground rhizomes with energy synthesized from the sun. The plants gain strength in year two and by the following spring, some of the spears are reaching the full diameter of a pencil, signaling they’re ready to harvest.
2. Everyone makes “asparagus pee,” but not everyone can smell it.
From our partners at VICE
Scientific study has confirmed why some individuals don’t notice the uniquely pungent urine experienced by others after eating asparagus: The sulfurous compounds in asparagus pee are highly correlated with a condition called “specific anosmia,” the genetic inability to smell certain odors. In an infamous blind smell test, 328 individuals were subjected to the odor of a man’s urine after he had eaten asparagus. The majority of those who had experienced asparagus pee themselves were able to correctly identify the substance, while those that claimed their urine did not smell strangely after consuming asparagus were not.
3. Chickens can help farm asparagus.
Rick and Marilyn Stanley of Chick Farm in Wells, Maine have conducted experiments on the subject and heartily recommend the practice. In their 2010 study, weed growth was reduced up to 90 percent after releasing their chickens in an asparagus field to forage — with no adverse effects to the crop. The Stanleys recommend a flock of about a dozen hens per 1000 square feet of asparagus.
4. China outdoes the world in asparagus production, by far.
Though productivity has slowed in recent years, at last count there were still 57,000 hectares of asparagus in China. The next closest competitors? Peru has 27,000 hectares in production, while Germany is close behind with 22,000. The United States ranks fifth with about 14,400 hectares, virtually all of which is in California, Washington and Michigan.
5. Oceana County, Michigan is the self-proclaimed asparagus capital of the world.
The county produces two-thirds of the state’s spears and hosts the National Asparagus Festival in June each year to celebrate the harvest. Unfortunately, America’s War on Drugs has caused a decline in the local industry. The United States pays Peruvian farmers to grow asparagus instead of coca, depressing the global price of asparagus and making it an unprofitable proposition for American farmers.
6. White asparagus is not genetically induced in any way.
Instead, the lack of pigment in albino spears results from the absence of sunlight. Farmers pile soil over the emerging spears and cut them off from below to produce the ghostly novelty. Purple asparagus, on the other hand, is a genetic variety. But don’t get too excited—it reverts to green when cooked.
7. White asparagus is one of the most labor-intensive vegetables to grow.
Every spear is hand-picked just as the tip begins to show through the surface of the soil. Farm workers carefully excavate around each spear to a depth of nine inches and clip it at the base. It must be placed immediately in a dark box so it stays white. Interestingly, white asparagus turns pink when exposed to sunlight, though there is currently no market for this color of asparagus.
8. Sea salt was the asparagus farmer’s original herbicide.
Originating in the sandy, sometimes salty, soils of the Mediterranean basin, asparagus tolerates salinity better than the majority of common weeds. Modern farmers often rely on chemical herbicides to manage weed growth, the most labor-intensive aspect of asparagus production, but rock salt was the old-fashioned alternative. This doesn’t come highly recommended, however — asparagus may tolerate salt, but adjacent plants won’t. The salt also forms a hydrophobic crust on the soil, leaving the asparagus asking for water.
9. Asparagus plants exhibit sexual differentiation.
Seed-grown asparagus results in a 50/50 mix of male and female plants. The flowers look slightly different between the two and the female plants produce a red berry, a diversion of energy from vegetative growth that makes them less productive per acre. For this reason, the main commercial asparagus varieties are genetic male clones.
10. Love of asparagus inspired an ancient Latin saying.
The emperor Caesar Augustus would bark “Velocius quam asparagi conquantur!” or “Faster than cooking asparagus,” which can be loosely translated as, “Get going already!” Augustus was such a connoisseur of the elegant vegetable, he organized elite military units to procure it for him. The famed Asparagus Fleets made rounds in the empire to import the best varietals back to Rome, while the fastest runners were employed to carry fresh spears high in the Alps, where it could be frozen for later use.
Reference :
http://modernfarmer.com/2014/04/10-surprising-facts-asparagus/
Komentar
Posting Komentar