Asparagus 101

When I was a kid, I hated asparagus. My grandma would make it for special occasions. She would boil it for a long time. A long time. It would turn an awful color and literally fall apart when it was removed from the boiling water. Gross.

My opinion turned around in high school. My BFF raved about asparagus. Her family would pick fresh asparagus from roadside ditches by her rural cabin. I realized eating asparagus didn’t have to be a terrible experience, but it could be tasty with a lovely texture.

I thought we would review some asparagus tips in Asparagus 101 before asparagus season is done.

Choosing Asparagus

Like any other produce, you are more likely to have good luck with tasty and tender asparagus if you get it in season. Asparagus season is early March to late May to June, depending on where you live.
Choose asparagus with tight tips or buds. If they have started to open up, then they are probably old. If they are soggy or slimy looking steer clear. It’s perfectly normal for the asparagus to have purplish tips.

There is some debate about thin vs. thick stalks. Some say thicker stalks are older, some say they are just harvested earlier in the season. Just make sure they are plump and not all wrinkled or dry looking.

Storing Asparagus

Asparagus doesn’t last long. I’ve heard stories of it lasting 2 weeks, but I’ve really never had success beyond about 7 days.
Store it upright in a jar or cup with about an inch of water in the bottom. Then cover the jar loosely with a plastic bag and put it in the fridge. (I left off the bag, so you could see it.)

Preparing Asparagus

The bottom part of the stalk can be very woody. When cooked it turns stringy and tough. There are a couple ways to deal with this depending on how much time you have and also the keenness of your guilt complex.
The easiest method is to bend the asparagus near the base. It will usually snap about where the fibrous part ends.

You are left with the fibrous bottom and the more tender top part. You can just toss out the bottoms and cook the top. This is more viable if your recipe calls for chopped up asparagus.

But I usually can’t do that. Look how much would be wasted? I can hear my grandma chiming, “waste not, want not.”

If you don’t want to be a waste-monger, and you have a wee bit of extra time, you can just peel the bottom 1/3 of the asparagus.
I once saw a chef peeling asparagus on the back of a bowl. This was a miracle revelation. It is kind of a pain to peel the asparagus on the counter because the peeler runs into the counter. The curved surface of the bowl keeps the peeler up, away and free to do its work.