Hunting Wild Asparagus is Exercise

Have you experienced wild Asparagus season before? Do you live in a place where asparagus grows wild? I never really thought about wild asparagus before we moved to Spain.

Asparagus and the farming of it became a part of my life when I was finishing high school. At the end of my junior year of high school my parents moved from Carmel, California up to Manteca and Tracy, California. My dad had built a boat in our driveway in Carmel and they had docked it up in Tracy. My parents drove the two hours up to Tracy every weekend and that was where they made the most incredible friends. When my dad’s job situation changed they decided to leave expensive Carmel and move to the much cheaper Central Valley and where they had a great connection.

Amongst those friends was one of my Dad’s best friends Bert Bacchetti whose family had been farming in Tracy for decades. Tomatoes and asparagus are the two crops I remember the most. I learned a lot from Bert about asparagus. Did you know that asparagus can grow over 8 inches in one day?! Yup! Cool, huh.

Stockton, just north of Tracy, started having an Asparagus Festival each year. It was an annual event for us. So much fun and asparagus dishes of every kind. Asparary Berry shortcake anyone?

When we arrived in our village almost three years ago we were pleasantly surprised to find out that asparagus grows wild on the thousand-acre property. The season was ending when we arrived so it wasn’t until the next season that we could start looking for it. I will admit that we didn’t have much luck that year. Last year we did a bit okay as we were better at searching for the shoots amongst the established plants. This year…WOW has been amazing so far.

My morning walks have become a hunt for asparagus. I say hunt because you don’t just pick the asparagus…first, you have to HUNT for it.

I’ve decided that hunting for asparagus is what having a personal trainer might be like.

“Focus. Squat! Lunge! Focus. Squat! Lunge!!”

You see the plant is prickly and just to make things fun it LOVES to grow amongst other prickly bushes. So…you see the asparagus plant…you focus your eyes to see if there are any shoots around it…this usually involves squatting and then when you see the shoot you lunge in to grab it and break off the top. Focus, squat, and lunge.

Can you spot the shoots? These ones are easy as they have grown high enough…but there are also all the ones that are just starting and are very close to the ground.

I change my route each morning so I can find more asparagus.

Some days are good…

Some mornings…not so good. But then we just save it for the next day.

This wild asparagus is much thinner than what you find in the stores so we can’t cook it the same way. We really just use the tips of this asparagus.

Bob makes yummy scrambled eggs with asparagus and omelets with asparagus.

The past two days we have taken lovely long walks and hunted asparagus. Today’s bounty is fabulous! Looking forward to a yummy breakfast tomorrow.

Tuesday morning it will be back to the workout.

Focus. Squat! Lunge!