Be Our Aspara-Guest!
Asparagus is back for its annual guest appearance.
Every April, a familiar visitor returns to the farm…
The way asparagus grows has the energy of a well-executed prank. One day: nothing. The next: BAM! Perfectly upright spears, as if someone came through overnight and placed them like props. Then by early June, alas - goodbye again, green guests!
That same whimsical spirit even makes an appearance in art history.
In the late 1800s, French modernist artist Édouard Manet painted a still life of a bundle of asparagus for a collector. The collector overpaid, so Manet responded with a bonus painting of a single spear and a note: “There was one missing from your bunch.”
Top: Édouard Manet, Une botte d’asperges (A Bunch of Asparagus), 1880, oil on canvas, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne.
Bottom: Édouard Manet, L’asperge (A Sprig of Asparagus), 1880, oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
Asparagus is a contradiction of sorts. For a vegetable with such a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it season, it also knows how to take its time.
In the most literal sense, asparagus spends its first couple of years doing almost nothing we can eat. Instead, it grows into tall, feathery ferns as it builds a resilient root system underground. Only after this period of establishment does it begin to send up the familiar stalks we enjoy each spring. And once established, this perennial rewards our patience with an annual (if short-lived) harvest that can continue for decades.
In the historical sense, asparagus has been a culinary favorite for millennia. It appears in ancient Mediterranean art and was enjoyed by the Romans, who prized it enough to cultivate it deliberately and even preserve it for later use. Across centuries, it has remained a symbol of spring and fleeting abundance. In fact, Stockton, CA will be celebrating the 40th annual San Joaquin Asparagus Festival later this month!
If you’re looking for your own inspiration, check out this collection of ideas from MasterClass on how to make asparagus the life of the party. After all, when a guest this anticipated comes to visit, it’s a joy to make the most of their stay.
