margaret suran > wrote:

> The
> European ones have little edible stem. We used to eat the "heads" and
> scrape off whatever "meat" we could by pulling the Asparagus stem, which
> was very woody, through our teeth, to scrape off every edible bit.

This can mean only one thing: the asparagus had not been peeled. If the
stem is peeled carefully and very generously, it becomes eminently edible
and there are no stringy parts at all to pull through one's teeth.

Here is a video of Kurt Gutenbrunner (of Wallsé, Blaue Gans, and Café
Sabarsky) preparing white asparagus. I believe you've seen it already. :-)

<http://video.nymag.com/?fr_story=ad7974dff37e32222a2ff3e82086b9c197d64718 &rf=bm>

Bubba