Asparagus

Mike’s
Pith & Wind cont.
.. I’ve come to quite like my stinky asparagus pees actually, which probably
tells me that I’ve been living on my own for too long.
I’ve been skimming through my ‘WHY in West Germany’ journal
(1983) to see if I can find any references to my German asparagus story. Boy!
What a depressing document! The Comic Strip Presents’ Bad News Tour
mockumentary is Play School by comparison. Anyway, I couldn’t
find what I was looking for, but as I remember it, we arrived in the little
hamlet of Winsen Aller (located half way between Hamburg and Hanover) in February,
(early spring in Europe), with late winter snow still on the ground. (We made
a tactical error early on by pissing in the snow by someone’s rather impressive
looking gateway on the way back from the pub one night, not appreciating the
evidence would still be there for all to see the next morning. There was much
glaring and muttering by the locals about the troublesome kangaroos for days
afterwards).
Anyhow, not long after we arrived, blackboards started appearing on the streets
outside restaurants and fruit shops with the word ‘Spargel’ prominent.
This was clearly a matter of some moment for the locals, so we asked our hosts
what it meant. ‘Asparagus’, we were told, the region was famous
for it. There was much bingeing on asparagus in the hamlet of Winsen Aller when
it finally hit the markets – and the tell-tale sulphurous odour lingered
in the air for weeks. It’s a pity I didn’t appreciate this most
interesting of vegetables in those days – I’m sure my palate would
have benefited from the experience. As it was, our daily diet consisted almost
entirely of boiled eggs, toast and coffee for breakfast, and Brathähnchen
mit Gemüse (chicken and vegetables) for dinner (when we could afford it).
The local cuisine was extremely limited, with pork and more pork being featured
on almost every menu, and the locals simply scoffed at poor old Bill’s
vegetarian proclivities. A bit of the ‘When in Rome’ philosophy
might have gone a long way regarding the asparagus, but remember this was twenty-three
years ago, and I was but a callow youth, far from home etc.
One day the full story will be told of our European folly, but even now I blanche
when I revisit those dank, dark days. I’ll conclude with a toast to the
not so humble asparagus; once eaten, not quickly forgotten, and I think you’ll
agree, a most suitable subject for a column called Mike’s Pith & Wind..