Germany's love affair with asparagus, the 'vegetable of kings'

When makeshift stalls and signs advertising fresh asparagus pop up along the roadside, Germans know it's "Spargelzeit," the brief asparagus season. Over a few weeks, people go wild with asparagus dishes and every restaurant has a special asparagus menu. In North Rhine-Westphalia, 140 farms have mapped out a distinctive culinary route they've called the "Spargelstrasse" (Asparagus Road).

Customers have a choice of different qualities, the most expensive being the stalks that are straight, have a length of about 22 centimeters and tightly closed tips, followed by less-perfect spears – too thin, bended – or even broken. No fuss: some stalls sell ready-peeled asparagus, as unlike the green variety, white asparagus must be peeled.

Germans can never seem to get enough of the slender white stalks only available for a few weeks each year: the season begins in mid April and invariably ends on June 24. Supermarkets, farms, farmer's markets and roadside vendors categorize and price the vegetable according to length and tips. In 2018, customers paid an average of €5.48 ($6.18) for a kilo of white asparagus.

The "vegetable of kings" is traditionally served with melted butter or creamy rich Hollandaise sauce, boiled new potatoes and thin slices of cold ham. From soups, tartes and omelettes to schnapps, there's no limit to people's creativity when it comes to asparagus.

Asparagus was a delicacy even in ancient times. Roman historian Marcus Porcius Cato described its cultivation in his book "De agri cultura." King Louis XIV had asparagus grown in Versailles in 17th century France. In 1852, a cannery in the German town of Brunswick started canning asparagus: Finally, it was available year-round.

The stalks grow under long mounds of heaped soil, and unlike green asparagus, they need to be harvested before they reach the sunlight. It is labor-intensive work, as every single stalk is harvested by hand. In 2017, many thousands of workers — mainly from Romania and Poland — cut some 129,600 tons of white asparagus in Germany during the short season.

In spring, asparagus-growing regions all over Germany invariably crown a new asparagus queen. The young women, often growers' daughters, promote and represent the seasonal delicacy. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which is the most populous in Germany, requires "candidates to be between 18 and 25 years old and definitely independently mobile so they can cover events on their own."

A museum in the Bavarian town of Schrobenhausen is dedicated solely to the royal vegetable. Opened in a 15th century tower in 1985, the museum was turned into the only European Asparagus Museum six years later. The exhibits shine a light on everything asparagus, including agriculture, history, literature, art and curios, including the above tongs.