Wild asparagus in Sardinia! Absolutely delicious and free!

It’s finally asparagus season again! In Sardinia, you can get it for free. It costs nothing, really! You just have to look for it and find it, and as the saying goes: the early bird catches the worm. So, pop into the nearest bar for an Italian breakfast, and then head out into God’s beautiful, open countryside! The hunt goes about in typical Sardinian style:

The best spots are the paths leading from my holiday home into the countryside. They’re lined with blackberry bushes. This is where I find them: the little green shoots, making their way towards the light under the shelter of prickly bushes. At the tip, they’re five to fifteen centimetres long – just a little thicker than a straw, but bursting with the flavour of asparagus. Five grams of concentrated flavour per shoot – incomparable! “Is that supposed to be asparagus?” asks my brother-in-law Wulf, who has never been to Sardinia, looking disappointed and bewildered; when I mentioned going asparagus hunting, he’d probably been thinking of white, waterlogged spears from German farms. “Of course it’s asparagus, here, try it!” Admittedly, at first glance there is little resemblance to the product of German farmers’ hard work bearing the same name. But the flavour! Every millimetre of these little green stalks packs the punch of metres of their visually superior Germanic cousins! Wulf concedes as much when he takes the raw taste test I offer him.

After an hour, we’ve probably collected three hundred grams, and I decide that’s enough for today. “That little?” grumbles Wulf, “it’s not worth getting up early for.” I leave his objection unanswered and drag him along behind me, back to the nearest bar. You have to understand that the Italian bar is the linchpin of all Sardinian life. “Trovati?” the barista asks me, and I hold up my cuff triumphantly. Wulf would have loved to have sunk into the ground at the audacity of boasting about such a modest haul, but was spared his embarrassment by the barmaid’s clear “Belli, complimenti”. (It’s worth noting that asparagus are masculine, so “beautiful asparagus” is “asparagi belli”. The barista was therefore paying me a “compliment” regarding my find.) Salvatore from the next table naturally follows up with the question of where I’d found them. To which I give an evasive answer. After all, who gives away “their spots”?

As is only right, we’re treated to a second Italian breakfast. After the early morning cappuccino with croissants, now a ‘cafè corretto’ for me and my brother-in-law Wulf. He grumbles about the grappa being added to the espresso far too early in his view, but then drinks it with obvious pleasure; after all, it was rather cold ‘in the asparagus fields’. Despite the glorious sunshine. It’s 20 January! An Irish coffee, Sardinian style, really warms you up! You have to know that the night before, we’d lit the Sardinian spring fire with the whole village in honour of St Anthony, and consequently were still dealing with a bit of a hangover. Wulf would have preferred to stay in bed rather than get his hands pricked by the blackberries.

My brother-in-law was, however, completely at peace with his fate when Salvatore, who happened to be there, took over the conversation and explained to us that there was only one ‘proper’ way to prepare this delicious vegetable. ‘L’unica ricetta vera’, naturally from ‘Mamma’. What followed was a rather lengthy lecture on asparagus in general and this particular asparagus in particular, and since hardly anything can be explained dryly in a Sardinian bar, a ‘Vinello’ was ordered to go with it. Vermentino, of course, to whet the appetite for the asparagus. (For non-Sardinians: this is a typical Sardinian white wine, whose complexity is reminiscent of Riesling.)

That’s Sardinian life! That southern European ease! Having time and being able to chat with one another! That’s what it’s all about: not the anonymity of a visit to a café, where you hide behind your newspaper and only open your mouth to take a drink, but being part of a community. People coming and going, a smile for everyone, a few words and a “Cincin”. Time doesn’t pass quietly, but it does pass easily and effortlessly. And so it passes on this January morning too; for, naturally, Efisio from the neighbouring table has heard Salvatore’s talk. He admits that the recipe isn’t bad. He wouldn’t dream of criticising it, but actually, the way his mum prepares ‘asparago selvatico’ is a far more ‘elegant’ way of approaching this vegetable. By the time his lecture is over, it is 12 noon; a few Vermentini are still circulating, and just as a third asparagus connoisseur, Andrea, threatens to join in, I cut the discussion short – actually more for my brother-in-law’s sake – citing urgent business to attend to.

However, I do not wish to deprive the interested reader of the outcome of our academic discussion:

The pointed-leaved asparagus is an evergreen, climbing subshrub that has been harvested as a vegetable on the island from late January to late April for centuries. It can be found amidst fragrant maquis, small eucalyptus groves and along the wayside. The stalks of the wild asparagus are tender and thin, and one must first spot them amongst the shrubs. At first glance, the asparagus shoots appear more like a wild, rampant plant or a weed. Only the tips are snapped off, and only up to the point where the stalks have not yet begun to become woody.

Salvatore-style asparagus is a simple omelette. To make it, the asparagus is braised in olive oil in a wide frying pan, just long enough to remain al dente. No blanching, no boiling. The flavour is preserved 100%! Pour the eggs, beaten with water or milk, over the top. Stop cooking before the eggs have fully set. Sprinkle with a little Pecorino. Done! (Of course, the omelette is seasoned with a little salt beforehand.) Salvatore prefers ‘Pane Carasau’ with this, but unfortunately that’s hard to come by in our part of the world.

Efisio, of course, had to counter the simple dish with a sophisticated recipe. Such are the unwritten laws of bar culture. He therefore swears by his mum’s chicken-based sugo, which is served with the typical Sardinian pasta ‘maloreddus’. For this, his mum uses chicken legs, from which the toes and tough skin have been carefully removed beforehand. These are immersed in tomato sauce and simmered over a low heat for several hours. Right at the end, the finely chopped asparagus is added and left to simmer for a further 20 minutes. Then the chicken legs are discarded, the sugo is mixed with the pasta and a generous sprinkling of Pecorino is added.

I’ve tried both recipes and would rate them both as ‘excellent’. Yes, I took the bit about the chicken legs seriously too, and I can say that I’ve never managed to make a better chicken sauce. (As it’s hard to get hold of chicken legs in Germany, I also tried it with chicken giblets. The result is a clear victory for the legs. So if you have the chance to buy them, for example in Asian shops, go for it!)

I mention here, for the sake of completeness, that every tomato sauce needs parsley, garlic, carrots, onion and celery as a base. Of course, chilli, basil, bay leaf and cloves can also be used. However, with all these ingredients, less is more. Quite the opposite of olive oil. Here, the ‘more is more’ principle clearly applies. Use it generously! If you simmer all these ingredients over a low heat until you have a creamy sauce rather than a tomato concentrate, you’ve almost got it right. Just bear in mind that the main component of all pasta dishes is the pasta itself, in whatever form, to which a ‘sugo’ is added to round it off. So be careful when adding the sauce! Don’t drown out the simple, beautiful flavour of good pasta with too much sauce, as is unfortunately all too common in our part of the world! Bon appétit!

With a Sardinian “Adiosu”, I bid you farewell for today

Joachim Waßmann