Salut/Hi Sojourner,

le/on Mon, 03 May 2004 23:45:35 +0100, tu disais/you said:-

>Having seen that there are several asparagus lovers here, does anyone
>have a foolproof way of freezing the lovely wild woodland asparagus
>that are available in France from now for the next month or so?

Yup. Don't.

Sorry, John, but although you can freeze them, without too much loss in
flavour, the texture's buggered - to use a technical expression.

>When Barbara and I first started spending the mid-May to mid-June
>period in France, we couldn't find anything enjoyable about French
>asparagus.

Challenge.

Come here and say that again. We grow our own green asparagus and find it
easily as good as any we grew in Britain, arguably better. In fact as I
write, we're looking at enough to eat tonight!

I agree that white and purple don't taste as good as green (a personal
opinion which is NOT shared by many here), but honestly we have no problem
at all with the green (neither do the odd lucky clients who happen to come
on a day when we serve them). I'd go further, and say that the green I buy
at Brive market freshly gathered from local producers is far and away better
than any asparagus I ever managed to buy in the UK, not that I did get much,
as it was so frightful.

> Then, a couple of years ago, we discovered the small wild woodland variety. It beat anything we had ever tasted before - >and the simpler the cooking, the finer the taste.

True of many (if not all) of the best vegetables. New potatoes, - a good
tasty variety like Belle de Fontenay, Charlotte or, Ratte, freshly dug and
simply cooked in their skins, and then served with lashings of good farm
butter is unbeatable.

>It is better than anything we've tasted before. The only question is
>how can we preserve it so that we can enjoy it throughout the year?

BAD thing. Enjoy each delight in its season. (This is a subject about which
CS Lewis talked eloquently in his "Venus" SF story, forget the name).

This is entirely OT and skip it if you wish, but I believe passionately that
as a species we NEED variety and we NEED to mark the changing seasons with
changing diet. I've already mentioned new potatoes, but I could have talked
about asparagus (naturally) broad (US field) beans, green peas, tomatoes,
purple sprouting brocolli, brussels sprouts, and many many other delights,
which if you ONLY eat in season are looked forward to avidly. If you eat
frozen and preserved foods throughout the year, you LOSE this sense of keen
anticipation and delight, and the seasons become "flattened out".


--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
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