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TEL AVIV, Israel / Haaretz Magazine / May 25, 2009
By Moshe Gilad
"Look, it's just perfect." Peter Geng has been cultivating asparagus for 25 years. He presets me with a white asparagus stalk, picked a moment earlier from his field, his eyes sparkling with pride. The asparagus season is in full swing, and Geng is very busy. For more than two decades he has been one of the leading asparagus growers in the southwestern German city of
Reilingen. My interest in his beloved plant flatters him, and he takes some time to acquaint me with it.
The asparagus season is brief, lasting from mid-April through June. During this period, an entire region, called the Baden Asparagus Route, revolves around this rather strange stalk. Everyone examines, measures, buys, chills and discusses the annual harvest, the quality, the prices and the recipes. Everyone recommends a different restaurant as serving the best, or most interesting, asparagus dishes.
On the way to the fields, Geng explains that asparagus has been considered a royal delicacy starting in Roman times. The aristocratic vegetable was considered quite nutritious. "They said it is good for the kidneys, but more than that, they said it was an aphrodisiac. This is natural and obvious, because it looks exactly, but exactly, like a large, erect sexual organ," says Geng.
It is impossible to avoid this comparison. We pass a booth with a massive, four-meter-tall bunch of pink cloth asparagus that leaves very little room for the sexual imagination. The two elderly women at the booth giggle and shrug their shoulders when I ask them about the impressive work.
The region's best-known story is about the asparagus-loving prince of Schwetzingen, at the northern end of the Asparagus Trail, who, as legend has it, had 18 illegitimate children, yet not a single one with his wife.
At Geng's field we are greeted by 10 Polish laborers harvesting asparagus. Each has a pail, a sharp knife and a broad spade. The long, sandy asparagus beds look completely bare to me, but the laborers know exactly where to dig. They clear away some soil, exposing a pale asparagus stalk, and snip it 20 centimeters from the top, before quickly covering up the hole. They move a few centimeters down, to hunt the next asparagus. This is a daily process during asparagus season: The harvesters comb the field by hand every day or two, looking for ripe asparagus.
"This is the best kind," explains Geng, examining the freshly picked stalk. "It's white, its base diameter is about three centimeters, and it is about 20 centimeters long."
This quality of asparagus sells for 7 euros per kilo at the roadside stands. There are plenty of buyers, because the season is short and, as Geng puts it, asparagus should be eaten very fresh or not at all.
The Baden Asparagus Route was marked out as a tourist attraction in 1994. It is only 136 kilometers long. You can drive it, of course, but now, at the height of the season, it is pervaded with the joyous bustle of farmers like Geng and his discriminating clients. A narrow path for cyclists and pedestrians stretches the length of the route, parallel to the road.
The whole thing happens parallel to Autobahn 5. The main road on the Asparagus Route is Highway 36. The spa town of Baden Baden is a convenient starting point at the south of the route. Baden Baden is a well-preserved 19th-century vacation site, with prestigious baths, very elegant hotels where the carpets bear royal seals, and above all, the most beautiful casino in the world. From Baden Baden the route follows highway 500 northwest toward the Rhine River, which borders France. The city of Strasbourg is just a few kilometers away. It then continues along Route 36, parallel to the Rhine.
The most popular preparation for white asparagus involves simmering or steaming it for five minutes and serving it with melted butter. This is amazingly tasty, although it does pose certain questions regarding the nutritious value of the asparagus. The other popular asparagus dishes - with bechamel sauce, in omelets, with meat, fish or other vegetables, in mayonnaise and much, much more - are not particularly dietetic, either. At any time of day and at every opportunity, asparagus is accompanied by large glasses of white wine, which according to area residents, "is a great help to ingestion."
From the town of Rastatt the Asparagus Route heads north toward Karlsruhe. This big city was once the seat of the royal family in the Baden area. It has palaces, museums, an impressive city hall, a good art center and other modern lures, but during asparagus season, one doesn't want to waste a single minute.
In small places, further north along the route, it is much easier to partake of the pale pleasure. A bit north of Karlsruhe, the Asparagus Route veers away from Highway 36 and heads toward Bruchsal.
This town has Europe's largest asparagus market, once a year. Growers of the region send their harvest there, and the town holds its annual asparagus festival every May. The festival, Geng says in a somewhat accusatory tone, "is intended only for tourists, because in May growers have no time for festivals." Around the city, at the edges of the fields, asparagus is sold at stands. The town has a large Baroque palace, famed for the beautiful staircase designed by architect and engineer Balthasar Neumann.
From Bruchsal, one heads back toward Highway 36, north to Reilingen. Here, in nearly every yard of this small city, people are sorting asparagus. There are large signs with the word "spargel" next to every house, and local election posters have a photograph of a few white asparagus spears, next to the caption, "A wise head for the local council."
Highway 36 leads to the northern end of the Asparagus Route, at Schwetzingen. The town square has a sculpture honoring the women who sort asparagus. Next to it are real stands, similar to the one in the sculpture. While these workers wear less traditional garb than their metal counterparts, they are engaged in exactly the same work.
On the other side of the road is one of Europe's most beautiful and well-tended parks. The local noble Karl Theodor established it in the mid-18th century as his summer estate. The huge area has a French garden, an English garden, an Italian-style garden and a pink mosque on the bank of a small lake. You could spend many hours here, especially when the flowers are blooming so vividly. During my visit, I saw two weddings and four couples taking photographs there.
At lunch at a small horse farm near Reilingen, Andrea Ballreich, a municipal employee who introduced me to Geng, implored me to eat more. The chef, standing beside us, looked like he would be insulted if we didn't taste all of the dishes at the table. Geng did not seem particularly perturbed when I apologized that I couldn't try even one more asparagus tip.
He looked at me in surprise, stuck his fork into the white vegetable and said: "In a little while the season will be over, and you'll be sorry you hadn't eaten one more, but then it will be too late."
© Copyright 2009 Haaretz.
"Look, it's just perfect." Peter Geng has been cultivating asparagus for 25 years. He presets me with a white asparagus stalk, picked a moment earlier from his field, his eyes sparkling with pride. The asparagus season is in full swing, and Geng is very busy. For more than two decades he has been one of the leading asparagus growers in the southwestern German city of Reilingen. My interest in his beloved plant flatters him, and he takes some time to acquaint me with it.
The asparagus season is brief, lasting from mid-April through June. During this period, an entire region, called the Baden Asparagus Route, revolves around this rather strange stalk. Everyone examines, measures, buys, chills and discusses the annual harvest, the quality, the prices and the recipes. Everyone recommends a different restaurant as serving the best, or most interesting, asparagus dishes.
On the way to the fields, Geng explains that asparagus has been considered a royal delicacy starting in Roman times. The aristocratic vegetable was considered quite nutritious. "They said it is good for the kidneys, but more than that, they said it was an aphrodisiac. This is natural and obvious, because it looks exactly, but exactly, like a large, erect sexual organ," says Geng.
It is impossible to avoid this comparison. We pass a booth with a massive, four-meter-tall bunch of pink cloth asparagus that leaves very little room for the sexual imagination. The two elderly women at the booth giggle and shrug their shoulders when I ask them about the impressive work.
The region's best-known story is about the asparagus-loving prince of Schwetzingen, at the northern end of the Asparagus Trail, who, as legend has it, had 18 illegitimate children, yet not a single one with his wife.
At Geng's field we are greeted by 10 Polish laborers harvesting asparagus. Each has a pail, a sharp knife and a broad spade. The long, sandy asparagus beds look completely bare to me, but the laborers know exactly where to dig. They clear away some soil, exposing a pale asparagus stalk, and snip it 20 centimeters from the top, before quickly covering up the hole. They move a few centimeters down, to hunt the next asparagus. This is a daily process during asparagus season: The harvesters comb the field by hand every day or two, looking for ripe asparagus.
"This is the best kind," explains Geng, examining the freshly picked stalk. "It's white, its base diameter is about three centimeters, and it is about 20 centimeters long."
This quality of asparagus sells for 7 euros per kilo at the roadside stands. There are plenty of buyers, because the season is short and, as Geng puts it, asparagus should be eaten very fresh or not at all.
The Baden Asparagus Route was marked out as a tourist attraction in 1994. It is only 136 kilometers long. You can drive it, of course, but now, at the height of the season, it is pervaded with the joyous bustle of farmers like Geng and his discriminating clients. A narrow path for cyclists and pedestrians stretches the length of the route, parallel to the road.
The whole thing happens parallel to Autobahn 5. The main road on the Asparagus Route is Highway 36. The spa town of Baden Baden is a convenient starting point at the south of the route. Baden Baden is a well-preserved 19th-century vacation site, with prestigious baths, very elegant hotels where the carpets bear royal seals, and above all, the most beautiful casino in the world. From Baden Baden the route follows highway 500 northwest toward the Rhine River, which borders France. The city of Strasbourg is just a few kilometers away. It then continues along Route 36, parallel to the Rhine.
The most popular preparation for white asparagus involves simmering or steaming it for five minutes and serving it with melted butter. This is amazingly tasty, although it does pose certain questions regarding the nutritious value of the asparagus. The other popular asparagus dishes - with bechamel sauce, in omelets, with meat, fish or other vegetables, in mayonnaise and much, much more - are not particularly dietetic, either. At any time of day and at every opportunity, asparagus is accompanied by large glasses of white wine, which according to area residents, "is a great help to ingestion."
From the town of Rastatt the Asparagus Route heads north toward Karlsruhe. This big city was once the seat of the royal family in the Baden area. It has palaces, museums, an impressive city hall, a good art center and other modern lures, but during asparagus season, one doesn't want to waste a single minute.
In small places, further north along the route, it is much easier to partake of the pale pleasure. A bit north of Karlsruhe, the Asparagus Route veers away from Highway 36 and heads toward Bruchsal.
This town has Europe's largest asparagus market, once a year. Growers of the region send their harvest there, and the town holds its annual asparagus festival every May. The festival, Geng says in a somewhat accusatory tone, "is intended only for tourists, because in May growers have no time for festivals." Around the city, at the edges of the fields, asparagus is sold at stands. The town has a large Baroque palace, famed for the beautiful staircase designed by architect and engineer Balthasar Neumann.
From Bruchsal, one heads back toward Highway 36, north to Reilingen. Here, in nearly every yard of this small city, people are sorting asparagus. There are large signs with the word "spargel" next to every house, and local election posters have a photograph of a few white asparagus spears, next to the caption, "A wise head for the local council."
Highway 36 leads to the northern end of the Asparagus Route, at Schwetzingen. The town square has a sculpture honoring the women who sort asparagus. Next to it are real stands, similar to the one in the sculpture. While these workers wear less traditional garb than their metal counterparts, they are engaged in exactly the same work.
On the other side of the road is one of Europe's most beautiful and well-tended parks. The local noble Karl Theodor established it in the mid-18th century as his summer estate. The huge area has a French garden, an English garden, an Italian-style garden and a pink mosque on the bank of a small lake. You could spend many hours here, especially when the flowers are blooming so vividly. During my visit, I saw two weddings and four couples taking photographs there.
At lunch at a small horse farm near Reilingen, Andrea Ballreich, a municipal employee who introduced me to Geng, implored me to eat more. The chef, standing beside us, looked like he would be insulted if we didn't taste all of the dishes at the table. Geng did not seem particularly perturbed when I apologized that I couldn't try even one more asparagus tip.
He looked at me in surprise, stuck his fork into the white vegetable and said: "In a little while the season will be over, and you'll be sorry you hadn't eaten one more, but then it will be too late."
© Copyright 2009 Haaretz.
