No matter how keen you are to grow your own fruit and vegetables, in France there are experts who will frequently do it better than you.
These people are “les petits maraîchers” – the small-scale market gardeners who specialise in growing quality, seasonal produce and then selling it at their local market.
You will quickly learn to recognise the good ones as they take up their regular site on market day and attract queues of loyal customers.
We grow a lot of our own fruit and vegetables, but there are some things we never attempt; either because the plants take too long to establish, require too much space in the potager or because the experts do it better every year.
In spring this expertise comes to the fore, and we love visiting the market to see which stalls have the first asparagus, or the best purple sprouting broccoli, the freshest coriander or the earliest strawberries.
Asparagus is, perhaps, the most eagerly awaited spring vegetable and is available for a few brief weeks each year.
The rural French tend to eat vegetables which are in season, so after a winter of unalloyed roots, leeks and endive, the arrival of those first spears is greeted with delight.
The first asparagus can arrive in March, but harvesting gathers pace in April when bundles of the fat, juicy spears are found on almost all vegetable stalls.
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When we first moved here, about 20 years ago, there was not a lot of green asparagus to be seen as the French prefer white asparagus, which is more tender but has a slightly bitter taste. These days, in our market, there are almost equal quantities of both, which keeps everyone happy.
Crowning glory
White and green asparagus are the same vegetable, but they are produced differently.
For both colours you have to plant an asparagus “crown” – as the plant is called – and then allow it to mature for a year or two before you take your first crop.
The crowns need to be planted about 40cm apart in a bed dedicated entirely to asparagus. You cannot interplant them with anything else, so they are expensive in terms of space and size of crop.
Each crown, when it has matured for a couple of years, will start to produce about 10 to 12 spears per season.
At the end of April cropping stops and the later shoots develop into fern-like fronds, which feed the crown for the next year. If you have an asparagus farm near you, you will quickly understand how labour intensive the plant can be.
With green asparagus you allow the shoots to grow to perhaps 15 to 20cm long.
You then sever them at just below soil level, wash them, trim the coarse ends and cook them. White asparagus grows in the same way, but is deprived of sunlight so that it does not have the opportunity to turn green.
You will see asparagus farmers earthing up the soil around the emerging stems of asparagus to hide them from the sunlight and keep them white.
They may also cover them with plastic sheeting. Once they are long enough, these blanched asparagus stems are unearthed and picked. Consequently, white asparagus tends to be more expensive and thicker than green.
When buying your asparagus at the market you will usually see it tied in bundles. Check the quality (and freshness) of your bundle by looking at the cut ends of the stems.
Here you can see exactly how many stems you are getting for your money, how thick they are and whether or not they are fresh.
Little beats asparagus you cut yourself and then cook immediately, but with some judicious shopping and a trusted market vendor you can usually manage very nicely.
The thickness of your asparagus spears is a matter of choice, but the traditional way to cook them is identical.
You need an asparagus kettle, which is a tall, thin pan with a metal basket inside. Partially fill with water and, once the water is boiling, lower your trimmed asparagus (in the basket) into the water.
Put on the lid and boil until the stems are tender when pierced with a knife. The principle here is that the stems are boiled while the delicate leafy top is steamed – and everything cooks to perfection.
We love them with that traditional French accompaniment, hollandaise sauce. But eat them as the French do – dipping them in the hollandaise with your fingers, not with a knife and fork.
