Wednesday and Saturday are market days in Loches. Last Wednesday the weather wasn't great but at least it wasn't raining so we decided we'd go. We've had quite a bit of rain recently and the temperature has dropped enough that we've even had the wood burner on in the evenings.
One of the vegetable stalls we occasionally shop at had asparagus on offer. Here in France, like in the Netherlands, this means the white version. When we lived in Maastricht [Limburg] we'd occasionally buy them direct from the farm. The provinces of Limburg and Brabant have the right light sandy soil in which the plant thrives. A quick drive out into the countryside and you'd see row upon row of the carefully raised beds sometimes covered with black plastic to protect the spears.
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| White asparagus beds in Limburg, NL [http://www.vvvzuidlimburg.nl/beleefzuidlimburg] |
The stall in Loches offered various thicknesses, and basically the fatter the asparagus spear the dearer. We prefer the thin ones when we're buying white and purchased half a kilo of nice slim white, purple tipped asparagus.
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| Green asparagus in the field [photo:http://world-crops.com/asparagus] |
However, if truth be told, we far prefer the green variety to the white; sadly you don't often see it for sale here in France. As we also needed mushrooms we carried on to the Dutch mushroom seller further down the street. Just before we arrived at his stall, having navigated the poulet roti stall successfully - its smells are so tempting - we spotted a couple selling just asparagus. The lady stallholder was busy explaining the difference in taste between green and white to some clients and that was what had drawn our attention. Part of their stall was given over to a display green asparagus, hurrah! Their asparagus came from the Sologne region which is about 1 1/2hrs drive NE of here and has a light sandy soil. Nothing for it but to buy, so we added another half kilo of lovely green spears to our purchases, yum!
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| Yummy! |
On the way back to the car we ran into
Simon looking very smart in his
Loire Valley Time Travel work clothes. He was waiting for Susan to finish guiding their clients around Loches' Logis Royal before taking them to lunch.
Once home, we wrapped the asparagus in damp tea towels and stored them in the bottom of the crisper drawer keeping them in the dark and chilled. Kept like this, they keep fresh for several days. We were taught to do this by an old friend who came from Limburg and was a complete asparagus aficionado.
We ate the green ones the next day with slices of ham filled with egg mayonnaise and a little melted butter and they were scrumptious! The white ones are on the menu for Sunday lunch tomorrow.
16 comments:
Although my preference would be for the green asparagus I also like the white. Thanks for the tip about keeping the asparagus fresh.
Bon appetite!
The green ones are the only ones....
the white ones are flavourless, YUCK!
The green ones, served with OOOOOOODLES of butter, and a touch of salt&pepper make our favourite starter.
I think we need to hit Descartes market tomorrow...
the 'sparrowgrass' lady from just the other side of Descartes will be there with white...
AND green.
It is odd, isn't it, that while everyone loves the white in France....
any terrine or paté seems to only have the flavourfulllll green?!!
OH! And we have a box full of your "broke-can't" here.
The stall you refer to is the only place to buy asparagus and strawberries! She is fantastic!! The green asparagus appeared on the stall a couple of years ago. I always buy the twisted spears as they are the cheapest of all. I noticed on Wednesday she had declassé strawberries super cheap too.
When I visited Leuven's market a few weeks ago with my English friends, they were very exited seeing the white asparagus, which are very common here. They said they could only get green ones in their area. The green only appeared in our markets and supermarkets 15 or so years ago.
Oh, yum! Can we have too much asparagus at this time of year? Sadly it isn't grown anywhere near here, but I must look for some while the season lasts. Enjoy your lunch tomorrow. :-)
I brought seed from the garden with us when we moved here and so we once again have an asparagus bed.
When we lived in France I used to reckon that I knew the location of every wild asparagus plant in a five mile radius....and would direct dog walks accordingly, because I firmly believe that you can never have too much asparagus!
Why not grow your own? It's very easy going and a bed will last for years if you don't over cut the plants.
The lady that Tim mentioned comes from a farm between Descartes and Grignon, and it's been interesting to see over the last 8 or so years how their area under crops has increased. Life must be mad for them in the run-up to the asparagus and strawberry season. She often has several named varieties of strawberry on the stall and one day I'll pluck up the courage to ask to try the different ones.
The lady that Tim mentioned comes from a farm between Descartes and Grignon, and it's been interesting to see over the last 8 or so years how their area under crops has increased. Life must be mad for them in the run-up to the asparagus and strawberry season. She often has several named varieties of strawberry on the stall and one day I'll pluck up the courage to ask to try the different ones.
@Gaynor - we much prefer the green ones too! When we lived in Suffolk we were able to buy them locally direct from a farm.
@Tim - My mother loved the white ones but we totally agree the white ones can be bland. Our white spears are going to be roasted in the oven which should improve flavour.
@Susan - she is indeed and it was great to earwig in on her conversation :-)
Sadly on Wednesday I'm in Orleans but we might go back next Saturday and get some more if she has any.
@ Martine - the same happened in the Netherlands. It was always just white and the season was announced with much fanfare. Our friend Thea used to do 'asparagus runs' to buy them direct from the farms [we were living in Den Haag then] in Limburg.
Now the green ones are increasingly seen in the supermarkets.
@ Perpetua - It's one of those 'proper' seasonal veggies that you can never have enough of while the season lasts.
As long as they're green....
We buy the white ones more as memory/reminder of living in the Netherlands.
@ Fly - never seen any wild ones near us but then we're on a band of very heavy claggy clay which is not to the plant's taste.
They're quite an attractive plant when they've 'shot through' as well.
@ Pauline - I'll bet it is it is all picked by hand and exhausting work!
You can see beds from the road as you drive from Descartes along the D750 to La-Celle-St-Avant; I'm assuming that that's your Descartes market lady.
We really ought to try eating asparagus, but never having had any it remains, for the moment, a 'sometime in the future' vegetable. But your blog did give me a nudge, and so, under your instruction, I shall look only for the green type of asparagus when the time comes to give it a try!
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