Super Food

Thursday was the official opening ceremony of the Bavarian asparagus season at a ceremony conducted by the Bavarian Agriculture Minister at Munich’s huge outdoor Viktualienmarkt (Victuals Market).
 
Asparagus is grown throughout Germany and is now the largest single vegetable crop user of arable fields (20% of total hectarage). Bavaria considers itself to be the best but I know that almost every region is proud of its products. One of the main areas in Bavaria is to the north west of Munich around the town of Schrobenhausen and it’s asparagus museum.
 
Exactly a year ago, the family were over and we were dining on the stuff. If I understood correctly, in the UK the green asparagus is the one best known. Here the white, bleached (grown in mounds) type is the most popular. Since 2000, the German asparagus harvest has more than doubled and similarly, the relatively small amounts of imports have halved. It is, of course, available in the supermarkets all year round but it’s nice to see a trend to being “satisfied” with the limited availability of a regional, seasonal product.  
 
The season officially ends on the birthday of Saint John the Baptist, 24th June. The growers are therefore trying out methods to push back the start date. For instance, using the heat by-product from biogas electricity generating units to have warm water pumped under the fields. As with the blipped hut at one of Ottobeuren’s supermarket carparks, they have had fresh asparagus on sale for several weeks. The hut closes early on Saturday at 14:00 and I was there at 19:00.
 
The same hut can be seen all over the place and especially near main roads. The company Lohner Spargel (asparagus) is one of Germany’s biggest and based in Bavaria. A family business which since 1990 has been very active in growing and above all marketing the product. They have also moved into that other seasonal product, pumpkins in autumn. The business also claims to be particularly good in the facilities they provide for migrant seasonal workers who probably make up 95% of the workforce for the 3 month season. A problem no doubt many UK farmers will be facing again this year. I cannot see how manual labour for such a product as the bleached asparagus could ever be replaced by machines.
 
Following on from yesterdays plastic Nestle Super Food which I am now taking daily, perhaps I should consider asparagus. It seems to have everything one needs. I understand that even the rumoured increase in urine odour intensity is becoming less of an issue as we humans are becoming more and more subject to congenital anosmia – inability to smell selected odours.
 
I wonder what the condition most of our politicians suffer from is called that leads to lack of memory of certain selected events?