![]() Later, Fackel-Kretz-Keller’s daughter Elfriede took us into the fields so we could see how the crop is harvested. The woman sitting next to me, overcome with emotion when she saw the asparagus being wheeled in, said, “Oh my god, look how beautiful they are!” There, 90-year-old Ilse Fackel-Kretz-Keller had been up since before dawn making gallons of asparagus salad. I ate lunch at Spargelhof Fackel-Kretz, a farm not far from the palace. (The prizes? Asparagus liqueur and special peelers.) Dressed in a gown and tiara, Schumacher presided over the day’s festivities, which included asparagus throwing and peeling competitions. “People say you can taste the difference here.” I was also introduced to the year’s “Asparagus Queen,” a 20-year-old named Anna Schumacher whose family runs a farm in nearby Forst. “Asparagus belongs to our city like nothing else,” he told me. The morning of the festival, I met with the mayor, René Pöltl. Also close by is the famous Spargelfrau, a statue of a woman selling (what else?) asparagus at a market stall.Īlina Stellwagen From left: The home of the Fackel-Kretz-Keller family, who sell asparagus there the Spargelfrau statue in Schwetzingen. I checked in to Hotel Gästehaus am Schloss, steps from the palace and the main square. ![]() During the following centuries, “white gold” morphed into an industry, with the first asparagus festival held in 1904. The vegetable was first cultivated in the garden of the Baroque Schwetzingen Palace in 1668. My target was Schwetzingen, a city of almost 22,000 that is Germany’s self-proclaimed asparagus capital. In early May of last year, I followed the Badische Spargelstraße (the official name of the trail), stopping in the towns of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Reilingen, and Bruchsal. ![]() So important is the Spargelzeit in Germany that there was grave concern about the 2020 harvest, when pandemic lockdowns shut out seasonal pickers who typically come over from Eastern Europe. Germans consume some 127,000 tons of the vegetable each year it’s so ubiquitous that supermarkets bring in asparagus-peeling machines (the outer skin of the white spears is thicker and more bitter than the green variety, so it is usually removed). It’s hard not to get carried away during Spargelzeit, the annual springtime asparagus harvest. “I think I ordered too much,” I said sheepishly. I glanced at my dining companion at the end of the table. The server asked, “Is someone else with you?” When I told her no, this was all for me, she shook her head. I ordered asparagus soup, an herb pancake topped with asparagus slices, and, finally, the classic preparation: a half-dozen steamed stalks doused in hollandaise sauce and served with potatoes. I sat by myself at the end of a common table at the other end a large man with red cheeks was tucking in to an enormous plate of schnitzel accompanied by a stack of plump asparagus spears. Inside the restaurant, a crowd of diners devoured white asparagus in every preparation imaginable. When I got to Simianer Spargelhof, on the outskirts of Hambrücken, I followed a path through rows of dirt mounds, beneath which lay what Germans call “white gold.” All afternoon, I had been following part of the 84-mile “asparagus trail” that passes through the German state of Baden-Württemberg, stopping at tiny roadside markets marked by giant white plastic models of the vegetable, or hand-painted signs announcing FRISCHER SPARGEL (fresh asparagus). Alina Stellwagen From left: Bunches of white asparagus for sale asparagus soup at the restaurant Simianer Spargelhof.īy the time I arrived for dinner, I was in a full-on asparagus frenzy.
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