Notes From The Asparagus Festival
Notes From The Asparagus Festival
Spargelzeit, Germany's annual "white gold" harvest, is also a great time to ponder the splendors of spring. But what wine pairs with asparagus?
By the time I arrived for dinner at Simianer Spargelhof, on the outskirts of Hambrücken, I was fully in the grip of asparagus fever. All afternoon, I had been following part of the 84-mile Baden-Württemberg asparagus trail, stopping at tiny roadside markets marked by giant plastic white asparagus and hand-painted signs announcing “Frischer Spargel.” At Spargelhof Becker, in Heidelberg-Kirchheim, they were serving sausages and beer along with the asparagus. At Spargel Vom Erzeuger in Reilingen, a giant bear painted like a strawberry stood watch over the neatly stacked piles of what the Germans call “white gold.” There, I bought a container of juicy red berries and munched on them while watching workers feed the spears into an asparagus-peeling machine.
At Simianer Spargelhof, I followed a path through the rolling dirt mounds that hid asparagus shoots underneath. Inside, the restaurant buzzed with excitement as a crowd of diners devoured plates of white asparagus in every preparation imaginable. I sat alone at the end of a common table. At the other end was a large German man with red cheeks tucking into an enormous plate of schnitzel, accompanied by pyramid stacked with plump, white spear.
I ordered asparagus soup, an herb pancake topped with asparagus slices, and finally, the classic spargel preparation: a stack of half-dozen asparagus doused in hollandaise sauce and served with potatoes. A different server brought my soup and pancake at the same time and asked, “Is someone else with you?” When I told her no, this was all for me, she shook her head like I was crazy. I glanced at my dining companion at the end of the table. “I think I ordered too much,” I said sheepishly.
“Eh,” he said, with a shrug. As he tucked into his own pile of asparagus. “It’s mostly water anyway.”
It’s hard not to get carried away during Spargelzeit, the annual springtime harvest that brings with it asparagus festivals and asparagus queens. Germans consume some 125,000 tons of the vegetable each year, and it’s so ubiquitous that supermarkets bring in the asparagus-peeling machines during April and May. So important is the Spargelzeit in Germany that there was grave concern about the 2020 harvest, when pandemic lockdowns shut out seasonal pickers from Eastern Europe. That spring, some news outlets suggested the military might have to be called in to pick the asparagus crop.
Still, my German friends found it hilarious that, as an outsider, I’d decided to follow the asparagus trail. “Your pee is definitely going to stink,” said one winemaker when I told him I planned to attend an asparagus festival.
In early May, I followed the Badische Spargelstrasse winding around the towns of Heidelberg and Manheim, through the small towns of Reilingen and Bruchsal, but the main target for me was Schwetzingen, the self-proclaimed “asparagus capital of the world,” and a super charming town of 22,000. Asparagus was first cultivated here in 1668, in the garden of the baroque palace presided over by Prince Carl Theodor. By the late 19th century, asparagus had morphed into an industry, with the first asparagus festival in 1904. The beautiful salmon-colored palace and its garden survives—just across the main town square, near Spargelfrau, a sculpture of a woman selling asparagus at a market stall.
History aside, Schwetzingen is also a quirky, modern small city, including murals by artists like Thomas Baumgärtel (famed for his banana graffiti) and Museum Blau, a museum dedicated to the color blue. On the night before the asparagus festival, at Schwetzinger Brauhaus zum Ritter, near market stalls selling (what else?) spargel and strawberries, I ate a delicious flammekuchen topped with asparagus and ham.
“Asparagus belongs to our city like nothing else,” mayor René Pöltl told me the next day, as the asparagus festival kicked off. “It began more than 350 years ago here. It’s very regional, a very special product. People say you can taste the difference.”
I was introduced to the reigning Asparagus Queen, a 20-year-old named Anna Schumacher, whose family ran an asparagus farm in the nearby town of Forst. “From the beginning, I was in love with asparagus,” Anna told me. “I make a lot of asparagus, the traditional recipes but also I like to make special recipes, such as asparagus fixed like a schnitzel.”
Dressed in her royal gown and tiara, Anna presided over the festivities of the day, which included an asparagus-throwing competition and an asparagus-peeling competition, which followed a fashion show in the shopping district of Schwetzingen. The contestants—mostly random spectators—competed for prizes that included special asparagus peelers and an asparagus liqueur. “Be careful!” the emcee said to the crowd. “Two years ago, a contestant cut his finger open and was bleeding everywhere.”
We ate lunch at Spargelhof Fackel-Kretz, not far from the palace. There, 90-year-old Ilse Fackel-Kretz-Keller had been up since before dawn making gallons of asparagus salad. The local woman sitting next to me at lunch was overcome with emotion when she saw the asparagus being wheeled in, saying, “Oh my god, look how beautiful they are!”
Later, Ilse’s daughter, Elfriede took a group of people, including me, into the fields to show us how the asparagus is harvested. White, unlike the green, asparagus grows under the soil, prevented photosynthesis from taking place. The process is meticulous, harvesting one subterranean stalk of white gold at a time. A good picker harvests about 75 spears in an hour, but it’s labor intensive. “You have to have good eyes. You’ll see a crack in the soil, like a star,” Elfriede said. Still in gown and tiara, Anna the Asparagus Queen demonstrated perfect technique, digging around the stalk with two fingers and then slicing it at the base. This hands-on work is why spargel sells at a premium, around $8 to $10 per pound.
In Schwetzingen, there is some grumbling that, in other parts of Germany, farmers have begun using plastic and heating systems to artificially replicate the growing conditions and to push the asparagus season earlier, into March. Not in Schwetzingen, where the season still begins in mid-to late April. “We start when it starts,” Pöltl told me. We don’t know when. The asparagus gods know.” It usually ends at some point in June.
It’s this once-a-year phenomenon that makes Spargelzeit so special. Locals gorge on springtime asparagus for as long as they can, as I did on my trip. “All season, we’ll eat it every day,” Pöltl told me. “And at the end, we say, ‘Okay, it’s enough. We will wait again til next year.’”
What Pairs With Asparagus?
While white asparagus is a homey tradition in Germany, it’s not that common to find at home in the U.S. White asparagus might not be as rare or exotic as, say, a white tiger, but neither is it exactly typical to find in your typical grocery store.
White asparagus is really just regular asparagus that’s been grown under the earth (or some other covering) with no exposure to sunlight—no photosynthesis happens so they never turn green. The white is woodier and more fibrous than the green, and so you have to chop the ends and peel the spears (in Germany people have a special asparagus peeler, but a regular peeler works too). You can put the ends and peels into boiling water for about 15 minutes to create a sort of stock, then remove the bits and drop in the peeled spears, along with salt and lemon juice, to cook for another 10 to 15 minutes. Meanwhile, you can whisk up a quickie hollandaise with egg yolks, lemon juice, some salt and paprika, and lots of melted butter. Germans often serve their Spargel with ham or potatoes.
The result is striking, and so different than the grassy and sweet taste of our typical fresh green asparagus. The taste of white asparagus is more like a cross between a root vegetable (like parsnips) and peas. The rich and creamy hollandaise sauce, the traditional dressing, and sprinkled chives blend well with the dish’s delicate earthiness. With all this going on, you want a quieter, lighter wine that takes a step into the background.
Asparagus is notoriously one of the hardest foodstuffs to pair with wine. Over the years I’ve heard debates about silvaner or riesling or even Austrian grüner veltliner being the best pairing for asparagus. But I’m here to definitively tell you that the best pairing with white asparagus is actually weissburgunder—aka pinot blanc. I’ve written before about weissburgunder from Pfalz.
