ASPARAGUS CULTURE. 



81 



cable, (not that used in cookery) is in its most perfect state 

 when blanched, as at Argenteuil, and also to a slightly less 

 extent in the market gardens ronnd London. The shoots are 

 gathered when about an inch of the top peeps above the little 

 mounds of earth covering each root. In this way the upper 

 portion of each shoot is of a pinkish colour, and the flavour, 

 when fresh, most delicate. This is not our opinion only, but 

 that of good judges who have tried it in all forms in France 

 as well as in England. 



NOTE ON BLANCHING. 



This question is really not an open one at all. When we 

 are told of hard sticks with an inch of green at the top, etc., 

 then one's patience fails in presence of the facts which are 

 easily accessible to anyone who takes the trouble to look for 

 them. Throughout the whole of Continental Europe this 

 vegetable in its best state is blanched, but perfectly edible to 

 as great a length as anyone cares to go. In cooking, the tips 

 are left one inch out of the water while the thicker stem is 

 softened. The perfect cookery of this vegetable is common 

 everywhere abroad. G-o into the best house in Covent Garden 

 and ask a good judge for the best flavoured Asparagus that 

 can be bought, and he will furnish you with what is all 

 blanched, save a purplish tip. The man would choose the 

 same for his own table. Such stuff as is now grown in the 

 majority of our gardens, if sent by chance to any market, is 

 sold with difficulty, and if sold at all, is cut up for soup or 

 the like. It would take pages to refute the fallacies that have 

 been written against blanching, but this much may be said 

 here, that the French would not supply the markets of Europe 

 with the best 6 Grass' if they did not blanch. More green 

 'Grass' comes from France than England to the London 

 market, but it always falls into the second quality as compared 

 with the blanched Asparagus from Argentenil. There is not a 

 flavour or a phase of the matter which has not been thoroughly 

 studied by the people who grow the best Asparagus near 

 Paris, and they have as good reason to blanch their Asparagus 

 as they have to leave their Spinach green. 



