BY NANCIE MCDERMOTT
PHOTO BY CAROLE TOPALIAN

Brilliant green and spear-like in shape, asparagus resembles pencils to our modern eyes, and like pencils, they have a point. Their point is simple and straightforward, a declaration from Mother Earth to each of us: “Winter is over, and springtime is here!”. Southern cooks and eaters have been heeding that message with eager gratitude, ever since the first stalks of asparagus poked out of the soil in colonial Virginia, the Carolinas, and beyond.

Asparagus appears along with “cowcumbers,” “pease,” “turnips,” and “lettis” in Martha Washington’s “Booke of Cookery,” a manuscript cookbook dating back to 1749. Spelled “sparragus” rather than the modern spelling “asparagus,” this elegant and beloved vegetable shows up first in a series of entries on planting and harvesting, and pages later with notes on how “…to pickle green sparragus.” It played a major part among popular cultivated vegetables in early Southern kitchens. Mary Randolph’s “The Virginia Housewife,” published first in 1824, includes recipes for a hearty stew of asparagus cooked with chicken and milk; an elegant presentation of asparagus stalks served on toast points with drawn butter; and asparagus pickles in which sun-dried asparagus are preserved in a brine including fresh ginger, turmeric, and nutmeg.

While families feasted on these harbingers of spring on Virginia farms early in the twentieth century, canned asparagus was the star in the “The Southern Cookbook” by Piedmont North Carolina’s own Marion Brown who offered the 50’s-era cook multiple recipes for creamy casserole-like dishes with canned asparagus.

If you love asparagus, consider planting a patch this spring, so that you can learn lessons of patience and gratification. Asparagus takes hold quickly and usually sends up shoots the very first year, but your job as asparagus-wrangler is to wait and give it time. Farm wisdom is to wait until the third season to begin harvesting your spears, and even then, to go slowly at first and harvest only for the first few weeks of the season. This will pay off well down the road, because once established, this sturdy perennial vegetable will not only continue to provide you with a feathery screen of beautiful gauzy fern fronds towering over your garden beds, but with 20 years of production.  In high season in late spring, you may need to harvest your spears every 24 hours, and your asparagus once established should return each year in exchange for some dedicated mulching and weeding and the basic tending that you would give any perennial plant.  For planting locations, look for full sun and well-drained soil; if the soil is a problem, simply set up raised beds. Dig a 12-inch trench, and loosen out the soil for another 6 to 8 inches below that line, so that the roots can have plenty of places to take hold. Trenches need at least 3 feet between them, and each plant or crown needs a distance of 12 to 18 inches from its neighbor.

Once you’ve made it through the “resistance years,” harvesting is simple and rewarding. Pick only spears that are pencil-sized or larger.  Once a stalk has begun to open up and begin “ferning,” leave them behind, taking only spears with tightly closed tips. To keep the crowns producing at their best, harvest every other day, at least during peak production in mid to late spring.

If planting isn’t in your future, you have one other option besides visiting your local farmers’ market, farm stand or grocer’s produce department.  That is to follow in the footsteps of author Euell Gibbons, whose book, “Stalking theWild Asparagus,” gained fame back in the 1970’s among baby boomers eager to leave behind the canned peas and TV dinners and move in an age-of-Aquarius direction. Gibbons really did stumble on wild asparagus as a young teenager. Indeed, some of the best places to find it are in ditches by the side of the road, or along railroad tracks.

Whether you track down asparagus in the farmers’ market or the margins of a plowed field, the supermarket or in your Community Supported Agriculture share-box, just be sure that you find some while spring is still in the air. Green, white or purple, cultivated or wild, fat or skinny, just give yourself the springtime treat of finding it, cooking it and sharing it with people you love to please.

Born in Burlington and raised in High Point, Nancie McDermott spent three years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand. Her nine cookbooks include the new classic Southern Cakes, Real Thai: The Best of Thailand’s Regional Cooking, and Quick and Easy Chinese. She lives with her family in Chapel Hill.