Traditional Irish Cooking by Darina Allen

Author:Darina Allen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Octopus
Published: 2018-10-10T00:00:00+00:00

Asparagus

Asparagus is a rare, native plant in Ireland. The Viceroy, Lord Clarendon, commenting on the standard of cultivation in Dublin in 1685, notes that ‘asparagus, here, is very good, large and green’. Jonathan Swift praised the vegetable as an excellent kidney stimulant, which was also good for gout and rheumatism.

Food historian Regina Sexton, in an article in the Irish Examiner in June 2011, says that ‘Cork may once have been famed for its asparagus’. She has been trying to trace the history of growing the crop in the county and discover why it is no longer a centre for growing it. Regina says that ‘what is clear is that commercial nurserymen/seedsmen were operating in Cork from the mid-18th century, but most likely for some decades before’.

Mary Forrest at the Agriculture and Food Science Centre, University College Dublin, notes in a recent study that the Library of the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin holds a collection of 120 nursery catalogues dating from the early 18th century to the present day. It notes 58 nurseries and seedsmen in the Dublin area during the 18th century. ‘The diversity is astonishing: Edward Bray is offering 19 types of peas, 12 beans, 10 French beans and 11 lettuces, thus dispelling the notion that Irish food of the 18th century lacked variety and character.’

Interest in horticulture and gardening was no longer the prerogative of wealthy demesne owners with their (sometimes vast) walled kitchen gardens. Cork seems to have redeveloped a reputation for asparagus growing. Asparagus likes sandy, loamy, moist but well-drained soils. Areas of Cork fit the bill, according to Ultan Walsh, an organic vegetable grower from Nohoval, Co. Cork, and now the only commercial grower of asparagus in Cork. My late father-in-law, Ivan Allen, grew five acres of asparagus close to the sea near Shanagarry in East Cork, in the 1960s. The variety Martha Washington had a superb flavour, and we were all very sad when the field was eventually grubbed out.

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