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English asparagus

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Re: English asparagus

Postby herbidacious » Thu May 06, 2021 4:23 pm

I roast asparagus if it's getting a bit past it's best. Usually I shave parmesan or comte on the top too.

I used to make Delia's Asparagus and Gruyere Feuilletés. Not done that for a while. I remember trying to make it in France for dinner guests out of season and almost impossible to get the asparagus. Maybe that was just bad luck though.

Does anyone else get asparagus wee?! (sorry to lower the tone.) I never used to but started doing so about ten years ago, which belies the genetics theory, potentially.

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Re: English asparagus

Postby Stokey Sue » Thu May 06, 2021 4:46 pm

In order to smell it in your own urine you have both to be able to produce the smelly chemicals and detect them - some people can do one but not the other, some both, so it gets quite complicated and - harking back to another conversation I do wonder if the production might be related to your gut bacteria? Just a guess - I found my ability to detect it in my own wee varied enormously even pre-Covid, presumably depending on what else I ate or drank, possibly simply how much water I consumed to dilute it,

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2014 ... l%E2%80%9D.

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Re: English asparagus

Postby Pampy » Thu May 06, 2021 5:09 pm

herbidacious wrote:Does anyone else get asparagus wee?! (sorry to lower the tone.) I never used to but started doing so about ten years ago, which belies the genetics theory, potentially.

Definitely! And it usually lasts well into the next day.

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Re: English asparagus

Postby Suffs » Thu May 06, 2021 6:21 pm

I can smell my own ... and I even get it from cheap asparagus cuppa soups.

I knew a chap who was accused by a work colleague of have some sort of noxious disease when using ‘adjacent stalls’. It was escalated to HR who had to research the matter before the chap was advised not to eat ‘strange’ food during the working week. Asparagus ... strange? In Norfolk?!?!?! :roll:

He decided it wasn’t the place for him and found another job.

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Re: English asparagus

Postby karadekoolaid » Thu May 06, 2021 7:20 pm

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
That´s a great story, Suffs!
All the more since I worked in HR for 25 years. I could probably write a book about the wierd requests we got to investigate!

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Re: English asparagus

Postby halfateabag » Thu May 06, 2021 11:05 pm

Very expensive English Asp. on the market today - 6 stems for £4, I left it there !!

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Re: English asparagus

Postby herbidacious » Thu May 06, 2021 11:52 pm

Stokey Sue wrote:In order to smell it in your own urine you have both to be able to produce the smelly chemicals and detect them - some people can do one but not the other, some both, so it gets quite complicated and - harking back to another conversation I do wonder if the production might be related to your gut bacteria? Just a guess - I found my ability to detect it in my own wee varied enormously even pre-Covid, presumably depending on what else I ate or drank, possibly simply how much water I consumed to dilute it,

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2014 ... l%E2%80%9D.


I researched it for the Food book I worked on but they wouldn't put it in. I wonder what changed, then, in me, that made me start smelling it...

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Re: English asparagus

Postby Badger's Mate » Fri May 07, 2021 10:34 am

In order to smell it in your own urine you have both to be able to produce the smelly chemicals and detect them


Yay! I can multitask! :D

I knew a chap who was accused by a work colleague of have some sort of noxious disease when using ‘adjacent stalls’. It was escalated to HR who had to research the matter before the chap was advised not to eat ‘strange’ food during the working week. Asparagus ... strange? In Norfolk?!?!?! :roll:


Had we got HR at W*** in the 80s I would have been referred to them for my garlic consumption. :roll:

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Re: English asparagus

Postby Earthmaiden » Fri May 07, 2021 11:23 am

We had the guy who grudgingly ate beetroot because his wife had grown it in the garden. The next day he thought he was weeing blood, rang in sick and got an urgent doctor's appointment. Doc referred him to the hospital immediately where he had urgent tests. Only then did someone ask if he'd eaten beetroot. I'd never noticed this side effect of beetroot before that!
(Sorry, this has nothing to do with asparagus. I have only noticed the effect mildly).

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Re: English asparagus

Postby Stokey Sue » Fri May 07, 2021 11:57 am

The beetroot one is also very variable, and seems to increase with age - depends on amount eaten, with what, and various other factors

One advantage of working with clinical scientists is we would only have reported a colleague’s wee to HR if he refused to give us a sample of for analysis

Enjoyed my asparagus last night, and the butter

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Re: English asparagus

Postby Pampy » Fri May 07, 2021 1:10 pm

Earthmaiden wrote:We had the guy who grudgingly ate beetroot because his wife had grown it in the garden. The next day he thought he was weeing blood, rang in sick and got an urgent doctor's appointment. Doc referred him to the hospital immediately where he had urgent tests. Only then did someone ask if he'd eaten beetroot. I'd never noticed this side effect of beetroot before that!
(Sorry, this has nothing to do with asparagus. I have only noticed the effect mildly).

A chap I used to work with had exactly the same experience!

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Re: English asparagus

Postby Badger's Mate » Fri May 07, 2021 2:36 pm

In this house, every autumn, without fail, the first batch of H-FW's beetroot soup with feta causes a great, if temporary, panic the following morning. :D

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Re: English asparagus

Postby KeenCook2 » Fri May 07, 2021 7:08 pm

Ha, I can multitask too :lol:

I'm sure many of us remember that first shock when your first baby eats beetroot for the first time ... :lol: :lol:

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Re: English asparagus

Postby PatsyMFagan » Mon May 10, 2021 9:57 am

Badger's Mate wrote:Had we got HR at W*** in the 80s I would have been referred to them for my garlic consumption. :roll:


In a previous life when I worked in an office where we had overnight security, we had to ask the company who supplied the guards to replace one particular individual who ate so much garlic, that he left a scent trail round the offices when he did his rounds ...

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Re: English asparagus

Postby Earthmaiden » Mon May 10, 2021 10:19 am

I sat next to the man who bit into raw onions in the way most might eat apples.

Going back to asparagus. All the British asparagus I've seen this year seems to be very thick-stemmed. It cooks well and tastes nice but just seems rather indelicate in appearance in comparison to the thinner sort I thought I remembered from previous years. Perhaps it's different sorts.

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Re: English asparagus

Postby Stokey Sue » Mon May 10, 2021 10:34 am

The first bunch I had was quite thin but the stuff I bought last week was fatter spears

I’ve always understood that “plump spears” were desirable, perhaps 10 spears to a bundle, the really thin stuff is called sprue and used to be sold off cheap in street markets for soup

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Re: English asparagus

Postby Suffs » Mon May 10, 2021 10:35 am

I think that in other years the thicker stemmed stuff goes to restaurants ... the demand from them isn't there ... yet ...

Some of what we bought the other day was really thick ... and lots of spears to the bunch too.

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Re: English asparagus

Postby Stokey Sue » Mon May 10, 2021 10:37 am

That’s a good point - like the good cheap big farmed mussels at the end of last summer because the tourists hadn’t eaten them

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Re: English asparagus

Postby mistakened » Mon May 10, 2021 10:41 am

Suffs wrote: think that in other years the thicker stemmed stuff goes to restaurants ... the demand from them isn't there
This has definitely happened in Cyprus, the same goes for strawberries

Moira

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Re: English asparagus

Postby Earthmaiden » Mon May 10, 2021 10:43 am

That makes perfect sense, Suffs!

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