Spargelzeit: May madness over Germany's white asparagus

Have you ever had white asparagus? It's a May specialty in Europe, especially Germany. The Belgians used to feature this labor intensive cultivation, but now most of what they now consume is produced in Germany. Today's NY Times reports.

Here are excerpts:

"Introduced into Germany from France in the 16th century, asparagus arrived in Beelitz in 1861 and quickly established itself as the prime cash crop, with 1,500 acres under cultivation by 1937. World War II and the advent of Communism — this entire area was in East Germany — caused production to dwindle to almost nothing. But a marriage of German capital and Polish labor has produced a remarkable renaissance, and by 2010 asparagus fields are expected to cover 2,500 acres.

At the Syring Family Farm in Zauchwitz, east of Beelitz, where an inflated, 20-foot-tall plastic Herr Spargel greets hundreds of visitors a day, men from Poland do the digging and cutting of the asparagus, and women from Poland feed it into a machine that washes it and cuts off the woody ends. They then sort it by hand and load it into plastic boxes for sale at the farm, in Berlin wholesale markets and to elite restaurants and hotels like the Four Seasons.

Their foreman, Jurek Wojciakowski, also Polish, said they make about 750 euros a month each, about $900, which is three times the going rate back in Poland.

Standard green asparagus with violet tips are grown and eaten here, but like most people in Continental Europe, Germans consider white asparagus, with its subtle, delicate flavor, much the more refined product. To keep it white, the spears must be protected from chlorophyll-producing sunlight, which would turn it green. The minute the furled tips threaten to poke through opaque plastic covers covering the long mounds in which the vegetable grows, workers lift the covers and harvest the asparagus.

"You try to spot the soil breaking," said Thomas Syring, the 24-year-old son of the farm's owners. "If you wait until the head comes through, it's too late."

Mr. Syring and his family produce close to 250 tons of asparagus on 75 acres in a good year — one with a mild spring and plenty of rain. (Asparagus is 90 percent water.) If it gets too hot under the covers, he explained, the vegetables' tips unfurl like flowers, spoiling them; the heat is controlled by reversing the plastic, so that its white, reflective side faces the sun, rather than its black, absorptive side.

The choicest spears are smooth and straight, with white tips (purple ones mean that the sun has had an effect). Biggest, in this case, is not best. Bernd Trittel, a jovial leather-vested salesman from Potsdam who had set up his small stall in the main square in Beelitz on the Saturday we were there, said the tenderest, most expensive spears run a bit less than an inch in diameter."

Comments

[Foodie]

Wish I were sampling some right now!

[Annet]

Hi,

I'm from the Netherlands, and right here it truly is asparagus season as well. White asparagus are most popular in this part of the world, and during the asparagus season, which runs from late April until June 24, restaurants offer lots of asparagus dishes, and farmers sell them fresh from their plots. We had some yesterday, fresh from a farm in the northern part of the Netherlands. We cooked them in the traditional way, that is, very simply blanched, served with boiled potatoes, ham, boiled eggs and holandaise sauce. Delicious!

[Foodie]

Hi, William--I just found this rather dense explanation re odors in urine after eating asparagus--evidently some of us have it, others do not--OR--some of us have the gene that enables us to smell it, but others do not. Interesting--I don't think there was mention of white vs green, however.

http://dmd.aspetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/29/4/539

[William]

I am trying to find out if the affinity Germans and Europeans have for white asparagus is related to a purported reduction in the offensive smell often produced in urine after eating green asparagus. This article confirms much of what I have heard, but sheds no light on my question. Unless white asparagus' reduced chlorophyl content somehow reduces the odor causing compounds the green variety, I can't see how it would work this added "benefit"...I am no biochemist! Is any information available on this topic?

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