White and Green Asparagus

I love white asparagus.  The best I ever had was one spring day many years ago when my friend Eberhard Müller called me.  Eberhard had been Chef de Cuisine at Le Bernardin and Lutece and now owns Satur Farms on the North Fork of Long Island with his lovely wife, Paulette.  The white asparagus we ate that day predated his farming venture.  It was at the time he was cooking at Lutece and one of his buddies from Germany just flew in with the day old asparagus.  It was the most subtle, tender vegetable I had ever eaten.  I have been on a search ever since to recreate that taste.

Inspired by that experience, I planted my own crop of green asparagus over ten years ago.  I learned that green asparagus are really white until they hit the sun.  The European method to keep them white is to plant them in a ditch and then as they grow quickly cover them with dirt so they never see the daylight. For me it presented too much work and was impossible for a weekend gardener. I was happy munching on my greenies.

That is until I visited one of the ultimate American vegetable gardens, Monticello.  Thomas Jefferson was a brilliant man and lo and behold it extended to asparagus!  He obviously shared my love of white asparagus and the disdain for daily dirt piling.  He thought, why not put a terra cotta cloche on top of the budding asparagus to keep it out of the sun? He did just that and at Monticello the sensual bell jar shapes of terracotta lined the asparagus bed.  I was intrigued. Envious.  I had to have a few.  The cost was astronomical.  I paid for six and the shipping was half of that again.  I comforted myself by thinking that at least it was cheaper than a trip to Germany.

When the cloches finally arrived in Connecticut I tore off the packing.  I began to inspect them as if they were the finest porcelain.  And then I saw it …the mark…the mark of the maker, Guy Wolff.  Mr. Wolff is not just one of the finest potters in the nation but a neighbor of mine. These cloches were right under my nose here in Connecticut. Oh well, let’s just get to the white asparagus.

Weekend gardening is highly problematic for an asparagus farmer.  The asparagus shoot up in a mere day!  You should break them from their stem at the natural bend.  And eat them as soon as possible.  I put a cloche over a crown of asparagus and voila, I opened the cap to find the sproutings of a spear.  The next day I had my white asparagus.  Was it ambrosial?  Not quite.  The taste was more delicate and subtle but it was not tender at all!  In fact I could pull the tough fibers through my teeth almost like eating an artichoke.  I was disappointed.  Perhaps it is the strain of asparagus that I am growing?  The greens had a more assertive taste and were easier to bite… not so fibrous.  I am still pondering why my white asparagus is so tough but I will still grow more of it.  Why?  I love the look on the plate.  I love the shadings of off white and lemon yellows.  I love the squiggle profiles when they hit against the cap of the cloche.  I love the way the terracotta jars look in the garden.  After all, there is a lot more to delicious that just the taste of a dish.