Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis)

Dear Readers, I am always excited when I see the first English asparagus on sale at Tony’s Continental on East Finchley High Street. There is usually some asparagus in the shop, but I would rather feast from spring to midsummer on the English stuff than have Peruvian asparagus all year round. Much like the Seville oranges, asparagus is a real seasonal treat and doesn’t taste the same to me at any other time of year.  But what exactly is it? What is it related to? And how long has it been a treat?

Firstly, asparagus belongs to a genus of 300 varied species. Some are climbers, some are drought-adapted thorny species with tubers which store water. To my surprise, the asparagus ‘fern’ (Asparagus setaceus) is actually closely related to edible asparagus – often plants are named because of a superficial resemblance, but in this case the name has a scientific basis. Edible asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) probably has a native range from western temperate Asia through to western Europe. It was grown as a vegetable from at least 3000 BC, when it appeared in a frieze in an Egyptian tomb, and was mentioned by the Roman chef Apicius in the first ever cookbook, written in 300 BC. It was grown in Norman monasteries, but was first mentioned in the UK in 1538, arriving in the New World as late as 1850. The world has taken to it with great gusto, however, and it now features in cuisines all over the planet. China is by far the major producer,

Asparagus fern (Asparagus setaceus) (Photo One)

You can see the similarity when compared with the delicate foliage of the ‘domesticated’ plant, here left to go to seed.

Mature asparagus with seed pods (Photo Two)

Edible asparagus, in its wild form, was probably a coastal plant – it can certainly grow in soils too salty for other plants, and one way of preparing asparagus beds historically was to suppress the weeds with salt. This did mean that you were stuck with growing asparagus forever in that site, however. The soil needs to be well-drained and also fertile, a tricky combination to achieve. Furthermore, only the young shoots are edible – asparagus quickly becomes woody. When I was working in the Netherlands I noticed how much they preferred white asparagus – this is the same plant but the shoots are ‘earthed up’ as they develop, so that they don’t have access to light and so don’t photosynthesize. My colleagues said that the resulting vegetable was much more delicate in taste, but I always found the white stuff a bit too squishy, preferring the subtle toothsomeness of the green shoots. Each to their own, of course.

Asparagus is a favourite regional crop in many places. In the UK the Vale of Evesham in Worcestershire is an asparagus hotspot, and hosts a music festival called ‘Asparafest’ every year. In the US, the city of Stockton in California holds an annual asparagus festival. In Germany, many cities hold celebrations to herald the arrival of white asparagus: those in Bavaria involve lots of beer, naturally, but the city of Berlin’s festival featured the uncontested world record for asparagus peeling by television chef Helmut Zipner, who peeled an entire tonne of asparagus in 16 hours. This earned him the title of ‘Asparagus Tarzan’.

The eating of asparagus has long been thought to have two major effects. It was long said to be an aphrodisiac, probably because of the shoots’ phallic appearance (if you don’t look too closely) and the fact that they arrive in the spring, when all of nature’s thoughts turn to getting jiggy with it. Madame de Pompadour apparently feasted on them, calling them ‘points d’amour’.

However, I would like to concentrate here on asparagus’s historical medicinal qualities. It has long thought to be a diuretic, and to be a useful treatment for urinary disorders, but I wonder how much of this is due to the almost magical way in which asparagus changes the smell of urine? Within 30 minutes of eating the stuff you can tell that you’ve been eating the vegetable, and the effect lasts for up to four hours. I can think of few other foodstuffs that change the smell of one’s bodily secretions so quickly: eating some spices will change the smell of sweat, for example, but not so instantaneously.

The change is brought about by the breakdown of a compound called asparagusic acid. For a long time, it was thought that not everyone’s urine changed in aroma, but it has been proved that actually what happens is that some people are genetically less able to perceive the smell. This reminds me of the way that 10% of the population are unable to detect the scent of freesias, though this seems to me rather sadder than not being able to notice the way that asparagus changes the smell of pee.

A feast of asparagus (Photo Three)

Asparagus’s alternative name is ‘sparrow grass’, which I rather like. In Turkey, it’s called kuşkonmaz which literally means ‘a bird won’t land on it’, referring to the awkward shape of the plant.

Finally, here is a story that combines art and poetry, two of my favourite things. The poem, by Tom Pow, tells the tale much better than I can.

The Asparagus

Tom Pow

A Bunch of Asparagus by Eduoard Manet (1880) (Public Domain). This small painting was bought by Charles Ephrussi who gave Manet 1000 francs, instead of the 800 francs that Manet had requested.

Asparagus by Edouard Manet (1880) (Public Domain) Manet painted this lone asparagus shoot, and gave it to Ephrussi, tellling him that ‘there was one missing from your bunch’.

Photo Credits

Photo One by (c)2006 Derek Ramsey (Ram-Man). Location credit to the Chanticleer Garden. – Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1191941

Photo Two by By SriMesh – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4880679

Photo Three by Muffet [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

Shadbush (Amelanchier sp) in East Finchley

Dear Readers, as I am just back from a fortnight in Canada I thought I would feature a North American tree this week, the shadbush or juneberry. The specimen in the photo above was planted a few years ago after the original tree succumbed to a fungal infection, and there is a larger, older tree on the other side of the road. It is fast becoming one of London’s most popular street trees, and you can see why: the frothy white flowers are surrounded by new leaves that emerge as bronze and gradually turn green, and in the autumn the tree has spectacular red foliage. They look a little like cherry trees, but, as Paul Wood points out in his wonderful book ‘London’s Street Trees‘  the bark and leaves are different – the bark of the shadbush is smooth grey with a faint vein pattern, and the leaves are smaller and more oblong.One slight disadvantage though, as I peer along the road, is the sheer volume of dropped blossom once the wind gets up – the car opposite looks as if it’s had a smattering of snow. But I would forgive it anything when the sun lights it up for a few seconds, as it did when I was writing this piece this afternoon. At the moment, I need all the sunshine that I can get, literal and metaphorical.

Incidentally, Paul Wood has a new book out soon called ‘London is a Forest’ and I have already pre-ordered it. Highly recommended!

Shadbush is a member of a genus of twenty-odd species of Amelanchier, a group of small trees and shrubs in the rose family  that are mostly native to North America. I seem to remember that my local tree had a label designating it as Amelanchior canadensis, but this has unfortunately dropped off. This is a group which hybridises with great enthusiasm, and so plants are often described incorrectly. Suffice to say that this particular plant strongly resembles those that I’ve seen in Canada, where they are often trees that pop up early as woodland establishes itself. The name ‘shadbush’ seems to come from the way that the flowers bloom at the same time as the shad start to appear in the streams in spring. This was the subject of a rather lovely children’s book by Carla J.S. Messinger, a descendant of the Lenape people of Eastern North America, and you can have a look here.

And here is a shad, for your delectation. They are members of the herring family, and were presumably very welcome after a long hard winter. When I was in Canada the long hard winter was still going on, and it was nearly April, but fortunately these days the arrival of the shad is not quite so crucial.

Shad (Alosa fallax) (Photo One)

Incidentally, the London place names ‘Shad Thames’ and ‘Shadwell’ are thought to be related not to the fish, but to the location of a nearby St Chad’s Well, although I have heard some other explanations too. Intriguingly, one of the Old English names for ‘fish’ was ‘shad’, though the fish that now bears the name does not live in Europe.

As you might expect from yet another alternative name,  ‘Juneberry’, the tree also bears fruits which are described as ‘insipid to delectably sweet’ depending on the species. The berries (or technically ‘pomes’)  are useful for wildlife, but have also been harvested for human use: the fruit of Amelanchier alnifolia, the Saskatoon, was an important ingredient in pemmican, a preserved meat taken on the trail by the fur trappers of Hudson’s Bay, and also by the Canadian native peoples. Saskatoon berries gave their name to the city of Saskatoon in Saskatchewan, Canada, and are made into everything from jams and jellies to rather delicious-looking pies.

Saskatoon berry pie and icecream (Photo Two)

The wood has also been used by First Peoples in Canada to make arrows and a kind of body armour.

The plant is the food of choice for many species of butterflies and moths, with the caterpillars of the red-spotted admiral (Limenitis arthemis) and the brimstone moth (Opisthographtis luteolata) being amongst the most colourful. As the brimstone moth is European and doesn’t normally have access to the shadbush, I assume that it has found those planted in streets and gardens to its liking.

Red-spotted purple admiral (Limenitis arthemis) (Photo Three)

Brimstone (Opisthographtis luteolata) (Photo Four)

Another name for the shadbush is ‘serviceberry’. The story was that, once the shadbush was in bloom, the ground was sufficiently thawed to hold the funerals of those who had died during the winter.

Medicinally, the plant was used by the native peoples of North America to treat dysentery, childbirth problems and worms.

And now, a poem. Why have I never heard of Stanley Plumly? I love his depiction of a city scene, and the way that it opens up from the particular to the universal. The last line is a killer.

Woman on Twenty-Second Eating Berries

She’s not angry exactly but all business,
eating them right off the tree, with confidence,
the kind that lets her spit out the bad ones
clear of the sidewalk into the street. It’s
sunny, though who can tell what she’s tasting,
rowan or one of the serviceberries—
the animal at work, so everybody,
save the traffic, keeps a distance. She’s picking
clean what the birds have left, and even,
in her hurry, a few dark leaves. In the air
the dusting of exhaust that still turns pennies
green, the way the cloudy surfaces
of things obscure their differences,
like the mock orange or the apple rose that
cracks the paving stone, rooted in the plaza.
No one will say your name, and when you come to
the door no one will know you, a parable
of the afterlife on earth. Poor grapes, poor crabs,
wild black cherry trees, on which some forty-six
or so species of birds have fed, some boy’s dead
weight or the tragic summer lightning killing
the seed, how boyish now that hunger
to bring those branches down to scale,
to eat of that which otherwise was waste,
how natural this woman eating berries, how alone.

Photo Credits

Photo One by By © Hans Hillewaert, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5678810

Photo Two by By Original: Elsie HuiCropping: User:Mr. Granger – Cropped from File:Saskatoon Pie and Saskatoon Butter Tart (9060879381).jpg., CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37036046

Photo Three by By Saxophlute at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32748228

Photo Four by By ©entomartIn case of publication or commercial use, Entomart wishes then to be warned (http://www.entomart.be/contact.html), but this without obligation. Thank you., Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=294708

Dear Readers, you may will be worrying about the state of my mental acumen at the moment. It’s very clear that the two jars above are definitely not weeds. They do, however, contain one of my favourite seasonal ingredients, Seville oranges. These strange, bitter, seed-filled fruits appear in December and are gone by February – indeed, what with Mum’s death and Dad’s deterioration, I managed to grab the very last of the fruit in Tony’s Continental on East Finchley High Street. It’s surprising to me that many customers buy Seville oranges to eat, and have to be gently advised that this isn’t a good idea by the kind folk in the shop. I suppose that marmalade making is a bit of a faff, but the result lasts all year (well, if you don’t give it all away) and there is such a pleasure about the long process of it, the cutting up of the rind and the testing of the set. It is one of those things that I always do at the start of the year. I was in two minds this time, because of course Mum was always a key beneficiary, but in the end I found it comforting rather than distressing. Let’s never underestimate the soothing powers of cooking, and of ritual.

Seville oranges (Citrus x aurantium) (Photo One)

It takes quite a leap of imagination to go from the knobbly, parsimonious Seville orange to those jars of golden unctuousness, but someone must have decided to put it to the test a long time ago. The fruit is high in pectin, which helps with the set of the marmalade. It is actually grown in Spain, particularly Andalusia, so for once the popular name is actually correct. The fruit has been shipped to the UK from Portugal and Spain since at least 1677, the date of the first extant recipe for ‘marmalet’.

But what actually is it? It’s believed that the Seville orange is a cross between two other varieties: Citrus maxima, otherwise known as the pomelo, gives the fruit its sourness, and Citrus reticulata, the mandarin orange, gives it its orange colour. These two fruits, along with several other varieties of citrus, are the ‘parents’ of all of the rapidly multiplying tribe of tangerines, nadacotts, pink grapefruit and clementines that grace our shelves. Most have been bred for sweetness, ease of peeling and juiciness. The Seville orange stands out as a fruit of grumpiness and character in this good-mannered company.

Incidentally, the Seville orange’s sourness puts it in the same category as grapefruit when it comes to dangerous interactions with some drugs, such as those used for chemotherapy and to prevent the rejection of transplanted organs. At least no sensible person will be drinking Seville orange juice, and I suspect that unless you are a real fan of marmalade the risk is quite low, though I would check with your doctor if you are tempted to indulge.

Pomelo (Citrus maxima) (Photo Two)

Mandarin orange (Citrus reticulata) (Photo Three)

Seville oranges probably arose naturally in south western Asia, particularly Vietnam, where the growing of an orange tree is said to bring happiness. The plants were exported all over the world by Arab traders, who loved to use them in their courtyards for their fragrance and their golden fruits. Most famously, more than 14,000 of the trees line the streets of Seville, and I imagine that the scent of the flowers is heavenly, though getting dunked on the head by a toppling, overripe orange might also be a hazard.

Seville oranges growing in the gardens of the Alcazar in Granada (Photo Four)

The Moors cultivated them in Spain from at least the Tenth Century, and there are wild groves of the plant in Florida and The Bahamas which were brought there by the Spanish. And no wonder. Although the fruit is used for marmalade, it has a multitude of other uses.

• You can use the peel to flavour liqueurs such as Triple Sec, Curacao (where a special subspecies of the Seville orange is grown for precisely this purpose) and my personal favourite, Grand Marnier.

Two bottles of Grand Marnier. That will do nicely! (Photo Five)

• The peel is used to flavour gingerbread and other desserts throughout the Nordic region. A Finnish Easter dish called Mammi looks particularly enticing.

Mammi (Finish Easter Dessert) (Photo Six)

• In Greece, Cyprus and Albania the fruit is an important component of spoon sweets – tasty preserves which are served on a spoon, usually with a strong Greek or Albanian coffee and sometimes cheese.

A sour cherry spoon sweet (Photo Seven)

• Seville oranges are used extensively as a side dish for charred meat and fish dishes in Iraqi and Iranian cuisine , and is also used as a salad dressing.
• In Belgium, Seville orange peel is one of the ingredients of Witbier, or ‘White beer’,
• I watched an episode of the Netflix cookery series ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’, in which the chef Samrin Nosrat travelled to the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. Seville oranges are used extensively in the cuisine here in preference to other sources of sour flavours (such as vinegar). In particular it is used in the pork dish Cochinita pibil, in which the meat is marinated in the bitter orange juice, seasoned with annatto (an orange-red condiment) and then roasted in a banana leaf.

Cochinita pibil (Photo Seven)

After all that food you might be glad to hear that essence of bitter orange has been marketed as a dietary aid and appetite suppressant, but hold your horses – some of the chemicals in the fruit act to raise heart rate and blood pressure, which is not desirable if you have circulatory problems of any kind. The supplements have been linked to stroke, angina and ischaemic colitis. Best to just lay off the marmalade, I think.

The Seville orange tree has also been used as a rootstock to grow the sweeter varieties, to make soap and as the material for Cuban baseball bats. The essential oil is also widely used in toiletries and perfumery.

Seville orange trees in the courtyard of the cathedral in Seville (Public Domain)

And now I find myself getting quite hungry. The only thing to do is, of course, to head downstairs for some toast and marmalade. But here is a poem that sums up the communal nature of marmalade making in many villages and towns all over the world.

The Makings of Marmalade

Gillian Allnutt

unripe oranges in silk-lined sacks
sow-bristle brushes
china jugs of orange-washing water
one big bowl
pith-paring knives, one for each woman
a mountain of sugar, poured slowly
a small Sevillian well
songsheets against the tedium, in parts
pine cones for burning
silver spoons for licking up the lost bits
a seven-gallon pot
a waxed circle, a sellophane circle, elastic
small pieces of toast

Photo Credits

Photo One by By Genet at de.wikipedia – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12761671

Photo Two by By Ananda – uploader’s creation, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=457650

Photo Three by By 4028mdk09 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25423079

Photo Four by © Jared Preston

Photo Five by Kuriosatempel – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68214466

Photo Six by By No machine-readable author provided. Strangnet assumed (based on copyright claims). – No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=644547

Photo Seven by Ανώνυμος Βικιπαιδιστής – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60773137