Beverley Sutherland Smith on asparagus then and almost now

This is one of my first recipe posts but that rather beautiful picture is not from it. It's from a later book by the same author - Beverley Sutherland Smith The first recipe book is The Best of Beverley Sutherland Smith: from The Age, which consists of a selection of the best columns that she wrote for that newspaper. It was published back in 1982. The Seasonal Kitchen, from which the above photograph is taken was published in 2001.

My first recipe book is a very modest looking book as you can see and only has the occasional hand drawn illustration within. I think it may have been her first book and The Seasonal Kitchen may have been her last - although I'm not quite sure about that. Anyway there is a gap of some twenty years between the two which is why I decided to see if she had changed her attitude to asparagus in between. And I think perhaps she had.

In the later book she writes,

"Once I would have said it was truly seasonal, but now it seems to be available for much of the year: however the flavour of spring asparagus is without equal."

Back in 1982 she wrote:

"It is often difficult to believe that spring has arrived when gusty winds and grey skies appear day after day, but at least the bright green tips of asparagus appearing in the shops are firm indication of the change of season."

No more - as she said - it is now available most of the year - though lots of it comes from overseas if it's not spring here.

She now grows her own - well she did twenty years ago. Maybe she's too old to garden these days. The Seasonal Kitchen was inspired, in fact, by her kitchen garden and includes information about growing the vegetables she talks about. Asparagus, as you probably know, takes a few years before you get your first crop, though I believe even that is changing - such are the advances in horticulture. For this reason she took a while to plant it, something she regretted because:

"Now it is a precious moment, worth all the waiting, when the first little asparagus shoots break through the ground."

I too have sometimes regretted not planting asparagus but knowing my record with growing vegetables I have never ventured into it. It sounded somewhat complicated.

But as usual I digress. This is a first recipe post after all. So what is the first recipe?

The book is arranged by seasons and she begins with Spring and I suppose that asparagus is one of the prime spring things. The article is called New Ways with Asparagus and has just two recipes - one for a frittata - a relatively new thing back then, and the first recipe which is Asparagus in a filo crust. Basically you cook the asparagus until almost done, then place a few stems on a slice of ham, on filo pastry and roll up into an enclosed parcel before baking in the oven. Simple and probably lovely, though I have never tried it. Interestingly though when I tried to find a picture of something similar I could find only one where the asparagus was completely enclosed, and these were obviously single stems of asparagus. Not a bunch. The recipe specified 500g of asparagus that was then divided into four to make four parcels.

All of the other filo and asparagus recipes that I found had the pastry wrapped around the asparagus (and ham and/or cheese) rather like this one - with the ends poking out - sometimes at just one end, sometimes at both. A wrap rather than a parcel.

Which is sort of a modification of the classic asparagus wrapped in a slice of white bread.

There were lots of other pictures of asparagus and filo, but mostly either somewhat like the one immediately above, or else as tarts, or tartlets. As for example:

So obviously asparagus and filo - good idea.

Apart from her comments on seasonality, the other main difference between Beverley Sutherland Smith's thinking in 1982 and 2001 is in the way she prepares the asparagus - whatever she is going to do with it then. In 1982, having broken off the woody end, she then peeled the stalks almost all the way to the top. In 2001 the peeling has been abandoned unless it's white asparagus which has a tougher skin. And indeed it does. I remember making a risotto with it once in France, and noting that it was a bit tough. White asparagus is much more common over there and I think is highly prized, though I'm not sure why. I much prefer the green and purple varieties myself and I never peel it and have never felt that I should have. Maybe they have bred tough skin out of asparagus.

Anyway, there you go - a simple and doubtless delicious recipe - one that you can improvise with to your heart's delight. In 1982 she just talked about ham - nowadays that would be prosciutto I'm sure. But interesting that even way back in 1982 you could get filo pastry reasonably easily.

I was about to finish this post, and was flicking through the book - lots of delicious sounding things and random kind of articles - rather like this blog which got me to thinking then and now in the way we communicate. I guess newspaper food columns were the predecessor of food blogs. I'm not sure whether they still exist as I do not get the foodie edition of The Age. Back then people would cut them out and file them away.

"Many readers keep cookery articles and eventually they become little yellowed, fragile pieces in the drawer." Beverley Sutherland Smith

I used to do this. I had a wonderful and fairly comprehensive collection of Robert Carrier's articles for The Observer or The Sunday Times - I can't remember which. I pasted them on to sheets of paper and collected them all together in a folder, and I know I had them when we moved here some thirty years ago. But somewhere along the line they vanished. I can't believe that I threw them out, so somebody else must have done. Today blog posts are ephemeral. Though there are still food columns in the glossy weekend newspaper magazines. People don't print them out and store them away these days though I suspect because most of the material can be found online. Besides there's always something new. The old is discarded. Like I have more or less discarded this book and many others even though there are treasures within - like Asparagus in a filo crust - or here's another just picked at random - Chicken spare ribs with spiced saté marinade. Tomorrow - chicken spare ribs. What on earth are they?

Also whilst flicking I saw a strange sounding recipe - Banana risotto!

"Don't be deterred by what may sound a strange combination: banana and risotto. It is delicious"

she says. You use almost green bananas of course, and it's flavoured with curry powder, garlic, onion and capsicum. But it also has sultanas and almonds. Not sure I believe her, although I guess it's probably common in the tropics.

Here is the line drawing that illustrated this first recipe's article. The asparagus looks fat - I think these days you are much more likely to find really skinny asparagus.

The illustrations give the whole book a curiously old-fashioned air, although the recipes are not necessarily old-fashioned at all. I should check it out some more - and tomorrow I will do those chicken spare ribs.