Recently, after posting about "Asparagus", I received a lovely letter detailing several interesting facts and this wonderful picture of an Asparagus knife. They came from Annette who lives in the Vale of Evesham, which I was excited to learn is famous for growing Asparagus. As a matter of fact, this was her husband's grandfather's actual asparagus knife, used in the field for cutting the lovely delicacy... at least 100 years old!!... and still going...
She tells of the wooden handle being worn smooth and serving its owner very well for many years... that it has a hand shape at the end of the blade... and that over there across the ocean, asparagus is known as 'gras...
I like that this tool was designed to do a particular job and that it did it well... That is good design and must have been a pleasure to use. How wonderful that it had been treasured enough to be handed down the family line... quite a functional artifact!!
Annette said that the 'gras has a season from late April to mid June, depending on the weather... and on warm nights she has heard it said that you could watch it grow, several inches a night!!!.... oh, don't I wish we had that kind of weather here!
The asparagus is cut, carefully by hand and tied with string into bundles, called "rounds".
During this season, all around the Vale, roadside stands spring up ready to sell the 'gras, which in her area has a distinctive, almost sweet, earthy taste and some people reckon that they can tell where each "round" was grown...
There is even a local pub called "The Round of Gras" which serves Asparagus suppers.... I can only imagine the lucky people attending them....
Annette shared that they love to eat it with grilled bacon and baby new potatoes with liberal dots of butter!! Although she says her favourite way is to put hot asparagus, straight from the pan, onto a plate with thinly sliced brown bread and butter, then go into the garden and sit on the grass and have Hot Asparagus sandwiches!.... Heaven!!!
Wish I could join her!..........Thank-you Annette!!
Next year I'll be having the first harvest of "gras" from my garden.... Now I can't wait!!
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