Believe me, vegetables are not really my strong point. If someone had said that I would write a post about vegetables someday, I would have said ‘right, dream on’. But here I am, good to go. Asparagus and celery are two vegetables that somewhat surprised me in Switzerland.
Asparagus
Of course I know what asparagus is. They’re long green vegetables that are okay to eat, but I wouldn’t drive miles for them. All the asparagus I had ever eaten in the States were green. I didn’t miss not seeing any green asparagus in the Swiss stores. I must admit, I did do a double take the first time I was served white asparagus in Switzerland. If I had seen white asparagus in the States it would have only been in a jar, like pickles. Certainly not fresh and certainly not that big.
Swiss White Asparagus
The Swiss white asparagus I was served was piping hot. It had gobs of mayonnaise on the side and a slice of ham. That was the whole meal. You pick up a piece of asparagus, dunk it in the mayonnaise and eat it. Okay. Of course I tried it. Certainly this is one of the few finger foods I’ve seen Swiss eat. Which is somewhat strange because it’s a rather messy meal. A lot messier than pizza which they normally eat with a fork and knife. The worst part about asparagus is if it isn’t pealed enough it can be pretty stringy and chewy. But it’s probably healthy.
As the years went by I noticed that the Swiss adore their asparagus. They will and do travel to get it. The place that many go is to Alsace, in France. ‘We’re going to Alsace this weekend, it’s asparagus season.’ It seems that the best asparagus is grown there. Wow, people actually make eating asparagus into a special occasion. To top it off, people ‘in the know’ can say when the asparagus was picked: morning or evening. I’m not one of the people ‘in the know’ but I can differentiate between green and white asparagus. Okay, call me unsophisticated.
Still, I have expanded my repertoire on how to serve them. During the many asparagus seasons (spring) I realized there are oodles of other ways to eat them. So, like many restaurants I add it to risotto, in sauces for meat or noodles or make soup. Which obviously no longer make them finger food; much more Swiss-like. All right, so I can’t tell when they were harvested, but at least I can cook them correctly.
Green Asparagus
Then, many years ago a Swiss friend planted green asparagus in her garden. I remember her telling me about it as if she had done something tremendously special. She had something you couldn’t buy in the stores. Ah-ha. That’s why I hadn’t seen them in the vegetables section of the stores. Not that I was really looking for them.
But times change, you can now buy green along with the white asparagus in the grocery stores. Nothing special about asparagus anymore. Unless, of course you go to Alsace where the generations of asparagus farmers are. There, it will always be special.
Celery
For me celery was always vegetables with long stalks. My mother put it in salads, to add crunch. She also put it in tuna salad, probably for the crunch again. Quite often it landed in our lunch bag. Just add a little salt and eat it plain. Good, healthy crunch.
The place celery really belongs is in the turkey stuffing for Thanksgiving and Christmas. When I first came to Switzerland there was no stalk celery to be found. How in the world do you make turkey stuffing without celery? You can do it, but it becomes second class. Once, when my parents came over one Christmas I asked them to bring some celery and they did. My dad said he felt like a smuggler, he wasn’t sure if they were even allowed to bring it or not. When they got here it was still sort of fresh and I put it in the stuffing. It was perfect. A hint of America.
Root Celery
I found it strange that you couldn’t buy celery in Switzerland. Correction, the only celery to be found in Switzerland was root celery. Which is about the size of a melon. It smells like celery but has a little bit of a different taste. I had no idea what to do with it. At some point I saw it packaged with other fresh vegetables and labeled soup vegetables. Right, it makes a great soup. This root celery is always included and it makes a mean vegetable soup. So I made lots of vegetable soup. On occasion, for variation, I’ve even add some to my ‘famous’ pumpkin soup.
Then, on one of those dinner shows on TV I saw someone make mashed celery, instead of mashed potatoes. All the guests seemed to like it, so I tried. It worked well. To get a real good mashed potato consistency sometimes I will do a ‘moitié-moitié’ half-half. That always turns out real well, too.
Like most of the other things, you can now buy stalk celery in the stores in Switzerland. I must admit though, somehow it just isn’t the same as in the States. Quite often it gets sold somewhat droopy. But if you can find a big enough supermarket with really fresh produce, you might get lucky. Otherwise, stick to the root celery. You can’t use it for the same things, but at least it doesn’t get droopy.
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