Spargelzeit!

In Praise of Asparagus, and Also of Keeping Things Special

Tiny, prosperous, neutral Switzerland is known as a peaceful, harmonious country, but for the past several weeks a controversy has roiled the nation. Outraged editorials have been published, petitions are being signed—perhaps even at this very moment—and laws have been proposed, all to put a stop to this dire practice. Are you curious about what could possibly have sparked so much furious activity? Here’s your answer:

I took this photo about six weeks ago at our neighborhood grocery store. Normally, Spargelzeit (asparagus time) begins in Switzerland¹ in mid-April and continues only until the end of June. Outside of those times, people here have never been able to obtain fresh asparagus—until now (she said, darkly). This winter, grocery stores started importing asparagus from Spain, where, because of Spain’s warm, sunny climate, asparagus becomes ready for harvest as early as February.

I love asparagus to a perhaps absurd extent. (Here’s an example of how daft I am about asparagus: Wanting to share one of my favorite treats, I once made the mistake of feeding asparagus to my daughter when she was a baby. Clearly not a fan, she pouched it in her cheeks and proceeded to crawl around the entire house, spitting out tiny boluses of masticated asparagus for the rest of the day. Lesson learned!) I have been biased in asparagus’s favor since even before I tried it for the first time, because, as a down-to-earth midwesterner, I get a kick out of a food that even hoity-toity etiquette columnists concede we’re allowed to eat with our fingers. Anyway, as a lover of asparagus, I say “Heck yes!” to importing it so we can enjoy a taste of springtime sooner, even though that means that Spargelzeit lasts twice as long—and is thus slightly less special I guess?

Asparagus as Metaphor

So why can’t we have fresh asparagus any old time we please? To be sure, the impulse to support our local farmers and not undercut them by flying supplies in from other countries is admirable, and there is a powerful environmental argument to be made for eating local. But why can’t we set up greenhouses full of perpetually-ripening asparagus in our neighborhoods, so that asparagus aficionados like me can have our cravings satiated year-round? I dived down an internet rabbit hole and found this out about asparagus: Asparagus, like a cookie, is a sometime food.

Asparagus needs a lot of rest and nurturing in order to flourish. When you first plant it, you must give asparagus at least two, and preferably three, years to establish itself. If you give it time to build up a solid foundation, it will reward you with up to thirty years of harvests.

In addition to needing to rest at the beginning of its life, asparagus must rest again each year after the harvest. That is a lot of rest and relaxation! As the article puts it,

Asparagus harvest is only two months instead of the entire season, because the plants need a chance to let the ferns grow in order to recover and build up energy for the next year.

The fern creates energy that will be stored in the underground portion of the plant to produce the following year’s spears. It is important to take care of the ferns even after the harvest is over to make sure you will have good future harvests.

I also learned that asparagus comes in three colors: the green we’re used to, the white version (which is especially prized in Europe), and a lovely and elegant purple.

Photo credit: Picture Partners/Shutterstock.

All three colors are the same species. Purple asparagus is a variety of the green and is slightly sweeter because its stalks hold more sugar, but it is otherwise indistinguishable from the green and in fact turns green when you cook it. White asparagus is just green asparagus whose young stalks have been buried in dirt so they’re never exposed to the sun. This process, called etiolation,² prevents the sunlight from activating the chlorophyll that would turn the stalks green.

Hmmm. We have learned that asparagus

1. Must be nurtured at the beginning of its life, or else it won’t thrive;

2. Must be given plenty of rest each year so that it can replenish itself; and

3. Comes in multiple colors and has subtly different flavors, but is the same species underneath the superficially varied exteriors.

Sound like anyone we know? Asparagus is a metaphor for us humans. Especially in these apocalyptic days of pestilence and war, we need a break once in awhile, to soak up the sun and nourish our roots, so that we can return to productivity at a later time. And we should keep reminding ourselves that no matter what color we are on the outside, whether green, white, or purple, we are all the same human species inside.

The Case for Scarcity

At the same time as we yearn for unlimited access to our favorite things, we know that if they are scarce, seasonal, or rare, we will enjoy them all the more when their time finally rolls around. Incredible as it might seem now that the film is ubiquitous during November and December and everyone feels oppressed by it, many years ago people actually looked forward to watching It’s a Wonderful Life because it was only broadcast once a year, shortly before Christmas. The same goes for Christmas music and lights, for Halloween decorations, and for all the holidays that seem to have invaded the perfectly good months that lead up to them. As my son once put it, “To those stating that Starbucks is at war with Christmas: You are absolutely correct. Christmas, though, started this conflict, with its imperialist encroachment into November. Now, Christmas is threatening Halloween itself.” If Christmas were to retrench to December, I suspect most of us would delight in, rather than grow weary of, the music and decorations—and possibly even look forward to It’s a Wonderful Life too.

Loathe as I am to admit it, the same goes for seasonal foods like asparagus. There is a special anticipation when the seasons begin to turn, and asparagus, then strawberries, tomatoes, corn, and finally squash ripen and enjoy their brief moment in the sun. When I was a child, I would bike to a nearby farm stand to stuff my backpack full of sweet corn straight from the field. I’d race back, and my dad would plunge the fresh ears in boiling water. Perfection! When we lived in New Jersey, my favorite time of year was midsummer, when the farmer’s market was bursting with red, green, and yellow tomatoes that were so sweet and juicy you could eat them like plums.

Truly, there is nothing in this world so glorious as a New Jersey tomato in July, unless it’s Minnesota corn fresh from the fields in August. Photo by Elly Johnson on Unsplash

In fact Mother Nature forces us to keep foods rare and special. Any serious cook will tell you that unless it’s summer, you should use canned tomatoes rather than “fresh,” because tomatoes out of season tend to be a distasteful pinkish-orange, with a mealy texture and bland taste. And the less said about strawberries in January the better. So while I would happily eat asparagus year-round, I am forced to admit that it’s not just the anticipation that whets my appetite: Asparagus is indeed much tastier during Spargelzeit.

About That Smell . . .

My high school biology teacher taught us that there are only a few traits that are controlled by a single gene; they include eye color, whether you have attached or unattached earlobes, whether you have hitchhiker’s thumb or a straight thumb, and—according to my teacher—whether you get that weird smell in your pee after you eat asparagus.

Notice how this man’s thumbs bend back sharply. That is hitchhiker’s thumb. The majority of men can bend their thumbs back like this, while the majority of women can’t. Did you check your thumb just now? Photo by Bave Pictures on Unsplash.

I had always wondered whether only some people make the smell, or whether everyone makes the smell but only some people can perceive it. Lucky for me, the internet exists, which saved me from having to lurk in the bathrooms of restaurants that serve asparagus to sniff the answer out. It turns out that everyone produces the smell: Asparagus contains the aptly-named asparagusic acid, which our bodies break down into components that contain sulfur. These components evaporate quickly when we pee, hence the smell.

Your humble correspondent is nothing if not thorough, and so I also decided to investigate whether the asparagus-sniffing capacity is truly controlled by a single gene. I was disappointed to learn from this article (with the amusing title “Sniffing Out Significant ‘Pee Values’”) that my biology teacher was mistaken, and that in fact multiple genes coding for multiple olfactory receptors control whether you can perceive that funky smell or not. I had been under the impression that almost everyone could smell asparagus pee—the figure given by my biology teacher was 90 percent—but it turns out that only slightly more than one-third of all people are able to smell it. Perhaps it seems like more because those who can smell it kvetch about it?³

I will close with the “conflict of interest” statement at the end of the article, which ranks as likely the funniest ever to appear in a scientific paper:

All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form and declare: . . . no financial relationships with any organisations, including asparagus growers, that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years. . . . Furthermore, the authors do not avoid asparagus consumption. Some of the authors report asparagus anosmia; the non-anosmic wish to remain anonymous. However, the first and last authors admit they can both produce and detect the “filthy and disagreeable smell in the urine.”

How about you, readers? Asparagus: Yes or no? And what is something rare and special that you enjoy only periodically, or, conversely, what is something that was formerly available only during certain seasons that you now enjoy guilt-free year-round? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

The Tidbit

We asparagus-lovers have been known to chow down on it raw, but it’s also quick and easy to prepare. Here are two of my fast and delicious recipes for Spargelzeit:

Quick Roasted Asparagus

1. Wash a bunch of asparagus and dry thoroughly. I prepare eight or nine stalks per person. If the asparagus is thin, snap off the woody ends but otherwise leave them whole. If the asparagus is thick, snap off the ends and then slice them diagonally, into oval-shaped slices about 1cm thick. Place the asparagus in a Pyrex roasting pan.

2. Very finely chop one small clove of garlic with one tsp salt, so that it makes a paste. Sprinkle this over the asparagus, and then grate the zest of one lemon over the whole thing. Grind black pepper over everything.

3. Drizzle olive oil over everything to taste (don’t be stingy!). Mix the whole thing up with your hands so that the asparagus is well-coated with oil and flavor, and lay the asparagus flat in a single layer.

4. Roast in a 375F/190C oven until the asparagus just begins to brown. This could range from only about five minutes for thin asparagus to much longer for thicker asparagus. Serve immediately, or else I will come over and snitch them right out of the pan.

All ready for the oven!

Pasta with Asparagus in Lemon-Cream Sauce

Ingredients:

1 small bunch thin asparagus—snap off and discard the woody stems and chop the stems into inch-long pieces

1 small clove garlic, very finely chopped with 1tsp salt to make a paste

about 1/2tsp nutmeg

plenty of freshly-ground black pepper

zest from 1 lemon

3T unsalted butter

about 1/2c heavy cream

2c rotini pasta (or another shape that holds sauce well; this sauce is also great with cheese ravioli)

lots of freshly-grated Parmesan cheese

Method:

1. In boiling, salted water, cook the pasta until al dente and drain.

2. Meanwhile, prepare the sauce: Sauté the garlic-salt paste briefly in the butter, add the asparagus and toss until the green color brightens, and add in the pepper, nutmeg, and lemon zest.

3. Return the drained pasta to the pot and turn the heat to low. Dump the asparagus mixture over the pasta and stir to blend. Then, pour the cream over everything until the sauce is a bit runny. Stir to blend. Finally, add in the Parmesan and stir until the sauce thickens slightly. Serve with more Parmesan and black pepper.

1. Spargelzeit is a huge deal in Prague, where we used to live, too. It begins a bit later there, because Prague is further north, and there it’s announced with rapturous signs reading “Český chrest’!” (which just means “Czech asparagus”). But the idea is the same: Asparagus is to be enjoyed when it becomes available locally, and otherwise not. I once ate a multi-course, all-asparagus dinner at a Prague restaurant during asparagus season, which featured several dishes that were fantastic and one—asparagus ice cream—that (to use a euphemism from my Minnesota childhood) I didn’t much care for.

2. As a very fair-skinned American of northern European descent, who is a bit etiolated herself (especially in winter), I can relate to the pasty-white asparagus.

3. I actually don’t mind the smell, but I’m weird. I also like the smell of skunks, cigar smoke, and my dog.