Simple recipes for fresh, Cornish asparagus

The warm spring weather has brought on the asparagus crop in Cornwall.  We’ve been enjoying Cornish asparagus from Lower Croan, Sladesbridge in our veg boxes for the past three weeks.

There’s a lot to be said for local food that’s come straight from the farm and run up few food miles.

Camel CSA is incredibly fortunate to be situated just a few fields away from the Derrymans’ asparagus farm. So it’s always tender and freshly picked – nothing like the tough old stalks you get in supermarkets.

Most of us would agree that asparagus is best eaten either on its own with some butter or hollandaise sauce, or with just a few simple extra ingredients.

Roger and Gill Derryman never get tired of their own Cornish asparagus with bacon and parmesan.

I’m a fan of what I call simply delicious Cornish asparagus with dry-cured bacon and a free-range poached egg (from my own hens, naturally).

Garden biographer Trish Gibson, who posts a recipe every week on this website, likes it even simpler – just Cornish asparagus with egg (from her hens).

Camel CSA volunteer Henrietta Danvers, who used to run her own restaurant in London, recommends Mark Hix’s more sophisticated shaved asparagus and goat’s cheese salad.

And if you’re not sure what to do with this lovely vegetable, why not begin with the basics: How to cook British asparagus. 

How we intend to bridge the ‘hungry gap’

We’re now entering the traditional “hungry gap”, which means that the normally wide variety of local, home-grown veg is becoming increasingly hard to come by in the UK.

It’s the time of year when the root crops and brassicas of winter and early spring either run out or start to bolt in the increasingly warm weather. 

At the same time, we’re waiting for the late spring and summer crops to grow.

So what can we do to fill the weekly vegetable boxes short-term?

Rather than go beyond Cornwall or even outside the UK, we’ll probably start to fill the boxes with more ”high-value” vegetables such as Cornish mushrooms from Tregonning Farm, Stithians. 

When the asparagus season begins, you may find that it’s one of only a few vegetables in the boxes.  But well worth it!  And extremely local – from Cornish Asparagus at Lower Croan, Sladesbridge.

We’ll also have some vegetables cultivated in polytunnels by our own expert growers - salad leaves, radishes, spring onions, spinach and coriander.

Growing fast

The growing team have been busy preparing seed beds and sowing all kinds of veg - Swiss chard, rainbow chard, perpetual spinach, beetroot and carrot seeds. 

They’ve planted out the first of the lettuces brought on in the polytunnel, and pricked out celery and celeriac seedlings.

Over the last two Sundays our volunteers have also been erecting a much-needed fence to keep out the rabbits, which seem to be multiplying by the minute.

Thanks to expert growers Jeremy and Mark N and to volunteers Cath, Charlotte, Danny, Fiona, Fred, Jerry, Kitty, Mark M, Mike S and Theresa.  And to our younger helpers Finn and Keira.