Asparagus: An Aspiring Spear
Asparagus is a delicious vegetable with a layered history. How did this aspiring spear make its way from growing in the wild to appearing on our plates?
The following is an excerpt from the The Seed Detective by Adam Alexander. It has been adapted for the web.
“Nature gives us the key to every secret that concerns our happiness, and in respect of asparagus cultivation she is liberal in her teaching,” Sutton & Son – The Culture of Vegetables and Fruit from Seeds and Roots (1884)
An Aspiring Spear
The dawn chorus heralds the arrival of the first spears, an eagerly awaited culinary delight for asparagus lovers like me.
‘All good things come to those who wait’, a quote by the Victorian poet Lady Mary Montgomerie Currie (1843–1905), is certainly true for those of us who love to rush to the kitchen with an armful of freshly cut asparagus in late spring and gorge ourselves on this magnificent vegetable.
Asparagus Season
By the middle of April my first morning stop in the vegetable plot is at the asparagus bed. Can I see the early signs of pleasures to come – pale pinkish- green little noses pushing their way out of the soil?
Must I make do with just a few spears until the crop is growing full tilt in May? Can I bear to share a surplus or shall I make more soup to freeze and enjoy that asparagus taste out of season, just like my distant ancestors, the Romans?
I have never found asparagus an easy plant to establish in my vegetable plot, although to read gardening books on the subject it should be.
History of Asparagus
A member of the lily family, Asparagus officinalis is believed to be another native of the Fertile Crescent, where it was depicted in Egyptian hieroglyphs from the Memphis dynasties of the third millennium bce.
It was grown in Asia Minor and Syria more than 2,000 years ago and was much loved by the Greeks and Romans.
The Greeks described asparagus as the fruit of a ram’s horn thrust into the ground.
Centuries later this myth was employed as an insult – thumbs and fingers outstretched on either side of the temples signifying the horn-wearing cuckold.
The Roman elder Cato wrote instructions as to its cultivation in 200 bce and Pliny the Elder, 200 years later, described three spears together weighing the equivalent of 325g (111⁄2 oz).
So, just as today, even in Roman times size mattered.1
Where Does “Asparagus” Come From?
Asparagus gets its name from the Greeks, who took the Persian word for ‘shoot’ or ‘sprout’, asparag, to give us aspharagos, which was then Latinised to sparagus. The medieval English word is a bastardisation of this, giving us sperage and later sparrow grass.
Although it was the Mediterranean civilisations who principally embraced asparagus, it is also considered to be native to northern Europe and numerous other edible species of this genus can be found across the world.
Sutton & Sons, one of Britain’s most important plant breeders, had this to say about asparagus in 1884:
‘It is so abundant on the sandy steppes of Southern Russia and Poland as to kill out the grasses, but it takes their place in respect of utility, the horse and the cattle eat it as daily food and enjoy life and prosper…’2
Early Asparagus Uses
Asparagus was growing wild in Britain 2,000 years ago when the locals would have used it as a medicinal herb and invading Romans would happily forage for it as a delicacy.
It is thought by some historians that the Romans introduced asparagus to Britain as a cultivated crop, but when they left in 400 ce it would appear they took their love of eating it with them.
There is no evidence that Britons ever foraged for asparagus as a vegetable, either before or after the Roman occupation.
Notes
1. Alfred W. Kidner, Asparagus (London, U.K.: Faber, 1959): 19.
2. Sutton & Sons, The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers: From Seeds and Roots
(Reading, U.K.: Sutton & Sons, 1884): 7.
Recommended Reads
Read The Book
The Seed Detective
Uncovering the Secret Histories of Remarkable Vegetables
$22
You may like...
-
$29.95 -
$29.95 -
$29.95
Recent Articles
Searching for tips on how to grow healthy plants? The excerpt below offers advice on how to improve your farm or garden’s immune system through providing optimal conditions, managing plant competition, and achieving optimal nutrient balance. The following is an excerpt from The Ecological Farm by Helen Atthowe. It has been adapted for the web.…
Read More
Get ready to create your own seven-layer forest garden! Food forests, or edible forest gardens, are life-filled places that provide habitat for wildlife and food for humans while promoting natural beauty and biodiversity. To get started, all you need is to take a page from Mother Nature’s book. The following is an excerpt from Gaia’s…
Read More
New to foraging? Here are a few beginner tips to get you started on your hunt for wild edibles! And next time you are taking a walk around the neighborhood, keep your eyes peeled for these thirteen plants: dandelion, mallow, purslane, plantain, thistle, amaranth, dock, mustard, grass, chickweed, clover, lambsquarter, and knotweed. The following is…
Read More
Invasive plants creeping into your yard is frustrating. Particularly for thistle, there’s a better approach than yanking it out at the root or worse spraying herbicide. Work smarter, not harder, with these approaches to removing invasive thistle. The following are excerpts from Beyond the War on Invasive Species by Tao Orion and The Wild Wisdom of…
Read More
Picture-perfect farms may be aesthetically pleasing, but they’re likely lacking in biodiversity. Rewilding practices allow the land to return to its natural wild state, providing more room for fruit-bearing plants to grow and animals to control small pests. The following is an excerpt from Farming on the Wild Side by Nancy J. Hayden and John…
Read More