| 词汇 | asparagus |
| 词源 | asparagus. There is a story that asparagus takes its name from the Greek aspharagos, meaning according to this theory, “as long as one’s throat,” because diners often swallowed the spears whole. But the meaning of the word aspharagos from which our asparagus derives is unclear and more likely meant “sprout or shoot” in Greek. The great chef Brillat-Savarin told of a giant asparagus stalk growing in an Episcopal bishop’s garden, so immense that it be- came the talk of the town as it rose from the ground. Only when the bishop went out to cut the tempting stalk did he learn that it wasn’t real but a perfect imitation made by a local canon, “who had carved a wooden asparagus . . . had stuck it by stealth into the bed, and lifted it a little every day to imitate the natural growth.” Some old-timers still call asparagus grass, from the hom- ily expression “sparrowgrass” commonly used as a name for the vegetable over the last three centuries. The Romans culti- vated the vegetable as early as 200 b.c., growing some stalks at Ravenna that weighed a full three pounds and gathering stems in the Getulia plains of Africa that were actually 12 feet tall. There is an interesting true story about blanched white as- paragus. According to a New York Times correspondent, at a re- cent dinner party “a certain guest complimented the German hostess and said: ‘This white asparagus is as beautiful as a na- ked woman,’ becoming the first asparagus eater to have noticed a resemblance between asparagus and the attributes of the fe- male sex.” See quicker than you can cook asparagus. |
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