stalking the wild asparagus by euell gibbons

At that age, I didn’t mind school so badly when winter weather made it disagreeable to be outdoors, but, when the first warm days of spring arrived, I only existed through the five school days each week in order to really live on Saturdays. When I was about twelve years old we lived near the Rio Grande in New Mexico. Finding and Recognizing Wild Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) And I still owe Euell a debt of gratitude for opening my eyes to the magnificent quantities of food that Nature will provide us free of charge - if we’ll only let her.–JS. Here I was, a farm boy who’d grown up with great-aunts and great-uncles who regularly gathered wild strawberries and mushrooms and greens and - except for my experiences with hickory nuts and black walnuts - I was learning to collect and eat volunteer edibles from a book! But that’s the way it was. If you know where to look, you can find wild asparagus near your homestead.Įuell Gibbons’ first book on foraged foods, Stalking the Wild Asparagus, was published in 1962 and I bought a copy shortly thereafter. Like their domesticated counterparts, the shoots can be cut multiple times they will grow back and can be cut again.Asparagus doesn't have to be bought from large supermarkets. The trick is to mark the patch, and then come back early in the early spring and start looking for the shoots.

At this stage they are as easy to spot as they will ever be. The wispy green fronds will have turned yellow, and the berries will be bright red. The best way to find wild asparagus is to look for it out of season, in late summer or early fall. The wild asparagus we find in New England does not have wild roots, but is, instead, feral an escapee from domesticated asparagus in colonists' gardens native to Europe, Asia and North Africa. How could anyone read that and not want to go foraging? When I am out along the hedgerows and waysides gathering wild asparagus, I am 12 years old again, and all the world is new and wonderful as the spring sun quickens the green things into life after a winter's dormancy.' But I have a secret they don't know about.

'They think it is much simpler to merely buy the asparagus one wants at the supermarket. 'My neighbors often smile when they see me by the roadside with my asparagus knife and pail,' Gibbons wrote.

But the excitement of finding them can't be beat, especially since I have been looking for wild asparagus since I first read about it in Gibbons' book back in the 1960s.

The asparagus in my field won't be ready to harvest and eat until next spring, the edible shoots have unraveled and unfolded into feathery fronds.

Stalking the wild asparagus by euell gibbons