Asparagus is back!

We drove past a local farm and spotted the spears gingerly showing themselves. Not many, but maybe they’d been picked early that day. It’s been in the shops for several weeks, but from far away places. It seems Suffolk farmers are famous for growing this crop which is traditionally only available for a few weeks. After that it’s left to produce enormous fronds of fern which look beautiful. When we moved into our house many years ago I found some growing amongst the shrubs, but only when the fern had reached above the other plants. We cleared that bed and planted more, but that’s now exhausted. There are a number of ways to use it – boiled briefly, steamed, griddled, roasted…it’s great cold as well as hot, mixing with leaves and herbs to create a rather more exotic salad. There’s a bunch in the fridge at the moment…maybe griddled tonight ? 😉