Stalking the wild asparagus

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jvh
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Stalking the wild asparagus

#1

Post by jvh »

Greetings
Found a nice bunch of wild asparagus this morning. Going to grill it this afternoon. Anyone else look for it?

Image

Vern

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jacknoir
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Location: the coastal flatlands

Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#2

Post by jacknoir »

Vern what state are you in?
I used to find it this time of year when we lived in VA.

jvh
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Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#3

Post by jvh »

I'm in Southern Illinois. Used to find it in Western Kentucky and Missouri. Love the stuff.
Vern

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jacknoir
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Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#4

Post by jacknoir »

I've had a tougher time finding it in New England. Maybe have to go out late summer/early fall and look for the fronds around old homesteads.

snorider
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Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#5

Post by snorider »

Another few weeks to go here and then I will begin to hunt. Wild Asparagus served with elk loin and topped with a sauce Bercy made with morel puree instead of demi-glace. I am HUNGRY!
Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it. T.R.

brendantm
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Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#6

Post by brendantm »

Not asparagus here, but ramps

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Shrimpman
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Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#7

Post by Shrimpman »

Vern, what sort of habitat does Asparagus grow in there? I have only encountered it here in moist, sandy soil on the edge of a hot, semi-desert river bed.

jvh
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Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#8

Post by jvh »

I found this bunch along an old fence row thru a pasture. It was on a hillside in a clayish soil. I have found it in creek bottoms to hillsides. Usually close to a fence or old road close to an old homestead. But always in grassy areas.
Vern

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bamboo rodley
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Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#9

Post by bamboo rodley »

I remember that book, Stalking the Wild Asparagus, by Euell Gibbons. I used to hunt for it this time of year when I was in college, but I never found any.

NewUtahCaneAngler
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Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#10

Post by NewUtahCaneAngler »

Used to when I lived in Western NY, but don't believe that we have any in Utah. BUT, we do have burdock shoots :-)

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Brooks
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Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#11

Post by Brooks »

NewUtahCaneAngler wrote:Used to when I lived in Western NY, but don't believe that we have any in Utah. BUT, we do have burdock shoots :-)
I literally lived on wild asparagus one spring, camped out upstream 25 miles from Moab. 1975. Tons of it. Old hippie days, living in my VW van. Would catch catfish, gather asparagus, soak and cook beans, roll my own tortillas, and occassionaly gather up my nickels and quarters for a $2.00 pitcher of 3.2 Coors, in town, that tasted like champagne at the time. I was REALLY broke.

Eventually got work at Bullfrog Basin pumping gas at the Chevron.

There's asparagus in Utah.

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WF70
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Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#12

Post by WF70 »

SE Va. Salt marsh country. I drove down there a couple years ago and could not get through on an old neighbor’s road because the now normal tide had the roads flooded out. As a kid in the 50s I would walk the several miles to a friend’s house. In the spring the firebugs were busy and along the roadside ditches one could always find asparagus which was the first thing to grow amongst the blackened burned grasses. With the contrast easy to find, even for a hunter/gather klutz like me,

Bamboo River
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Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#13

Post by Bamboo River »

snorider wrote:Another few weeks to go here and then I will begin to hunt. Wild Asparagus served with elk loin and topped with a sauce Bercy made with morel puree instead of demi-glace. I am HUNGRY!
I'm starved after reading that.

BearBio
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Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#14

Post by BearBio »

I know of one patch but so does everyone else in the area. Gotta be first!

ablecane
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Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#15

Post by ablecane »

When I was a kid in Ohio, every year around Mother's Day, we would walk along the railroad tracks and the trails in the woods picking wild asparagus and morels. Mom would french fry the asparagus. Wish I had that recipe now.

Doug Murdoch
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Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#16

Post by Doug Murdoch »

Up here, southwestern Quebec near the NYS border, fiddlehead ferns (wild asparagus are in season now.
'Study to be quiet'.

WiFlyFisher
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Re: Stalking the wild asparagus

#17

Post by WiFlyFisher »

We have a patch of asparagus (16ft x 6ft) that is over 100 years old. We eat, freeze some and after a while we get so many cuttings eventually my wife gives a bunch a way at work. When it gets warm in early May with decent rainfall you can almost sit out there and watch the stalks grow. When our kids were young they enjoyed it too, but got to a point each season saying: "Mom, we are not having asparagus again!"

Eventually each year we let it let in grow and go to seed for the next Spring. Each Spring I cut the old stalks and repeat.

My wife and I both love asparagus, but not store bought.

John

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