When we order the mixed salad here it almost always comes with white asparagus. I’m sure we’ve shown some salad photos with it. We don’t like it, kind of mushy. Green asparagus is harder to transport and has to be picked before it goes to seed. We heard it was grown underground. Betty, last night, mentioned how they grow it.
They just cover it with black plastic.
Today we were chatting with a guy from Oxford and related the story. He said he did not know there was green asparagus. So it must not be common in the UK either.
So I have to relate my favorite, and only, asparagus joke. At a dinner with shared food a plate of (green) asparagus was being passed down. On getting the plate a woman took a knife and sliced off all the tips and put them on her plate. The next person was shocked and asked why she had done that. She said, “Oh, the tips are the best part, didn’t you know?”
It is my understanding that white asparagus are preferred by gourmets due to their delicate flavor. The green are more earthy. The white are usually served with some subtle sauce; at least that is how I’ve had them in France and Austria.
Spargelzeit (“asparagus time”) is a big thing in Austria, lasting about a month.
We’ve been mystified why they are considered such a delicacy here. We’ve pretty much only had them in salads and avoid them in side dishes. Maybe they’d be better that way with a good sauce. Would be interesting to see what the Austrians do with them.
I think we are talking about fresh versus canned here. We see jars of white asparagus in even small grocery stores. The only white asparagus we have had is in salads and it was always from jars. A few days ago we saw white asparagus on a menu, it had a 7€ surcharge. Now I wish we had tried it because it surely was fresh.