>Slumbering under these mounds is the 2007 asparagus vintage.

Not the green stuff (although you can get that here these days, too) that most of the world knows.

This is Spargel – white asparagus – and the idea behind the mounds is that the spears – growing upwards towards the warmth – are deprived of light (which is kicks off the photosynthesis that turns the asparagus green).

Harvesting it’s a real pain.

You have to get up at stupid o’clock and wander along the mounds, looking for disturbances where the spears are just poking through the surface of the earth.

Then you dig down to the root (crown, actually), cut the spear off at the base and smooth off the earth.

Of course, it’s as cold as a witch’s, most likely raining and your back’s hurting like hell from bending over for hours on end.

Not that I’d know – I buy mine from the folks in the village.

A kilo for about 5 Euros.

Then you steam it and eat it with the best prosciutto you can buy, buttered new potatoes, sauce hollandaise (of course we make our own..), fresh chervil, straight from the garden and fleur de sel.

And a glass of New Zealand sauvignon blanc.

Yum.

16 Mar This entry was published on 16 March, 2007 at 06:24. It’s filed under Uncategorized and tagged Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.