The history of white asparagus, which costs 10 times as much as green, how to best bring out its sweetness, and Hong Kong restaurants serving it up
- While green asparagus is crunchy and slightly bitter with some grassy notes, white vegetable has a sweetness and nuttiness, with a tender texture
- In Hong Kong, white asparagus can cost up to 10 times more than green, and is used in some of the city’s top restaurants for their summer offerings
Just what is it about white asparagus that makes it so special compared with its green counterparts? First of all, it’s the price. While you can grab a packet of green asparagus at a Hong Kong supermarket for just HK$24 (US$3), the white version sells for about HK$235 per pound.
They are also worlds apart when it comes to flavour. While green asparagus is crunchy and slightly bitter with some grassy notes, the white vegetable has a sweetness and nuttiness, with a tender texture.
Green asparagus has been around for thousands of years; it was portrayed as an offering on an Egyptian frieze (a band of painted or sculpted decoration) dating back to 3000BC.
In Greek and Roman societies, the vegetable was used in medicine, having been credited with diuretic and aphrodisiac properties. A recipe for cooking it is even to be found in Apicius’ De re coquinaria, Book III, one of the oldest surviving cookbooks, dating back to Roman times.
White asparagus, however, didn’t appear until the 17th century, in France, when the method of using soil to surround the asparagus spears as they push up out of the ground to shade them from sunlight-induced photosynthesis, which turns them green, was developed. This technique soon spread to Germany and other parts of Europe.