ASPARAGUS, TRADITIONAL AND LOCAL CUISINE IN GAVÀ

Last Asparagus Fair in April, 2019

Today, The Grandma is still studying computing in Gavà. She has been working with Gimp, a digital application that allows improving the quality and the aspect of her photos and she has been also learning how to create mosaics with her own creations using PhotoScape.

Thanks to Mihaela, one of her classmates, she has discovered a new web application named Be Funky, an interesting tool to edit and manipulate images.

After her class, The Grandma has received the visit of one of her best friends, Tina Picotes. Tina loves Painting and she is very interested in knowing all the concepts that The Grandma has learnt today. She is also a great gourmet and she has suggested The Grandma to have lunch in a local restaurant to taste the most popular local product, the asparagus that has its own fair in this wonderful city.

More information: Be Funky

More information: PhotoScape

More information: Gimp, Tutorials & Language

Gavà is the land of asparagus and has been celebrating this with a fair since 1932. Do you know the Asparagus Fair?

The fields of the Sorres de Gavà have always grown asparagus. They cultivate a long, white, medium-sized variety with a fibrous texture. It is renowned for its slightly bitter taste, due to the characteristics of the soil of the Baix Llobregat, which is sandy and light, and due to the warm climate during the harvesting period. Try it out at the Asparagus Fair in Gavà, with more than 60 years of history!

More information: Fira Espàrrecs Gavà (Catalan Version)

Asparagus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Asparagoideae. It comprises up to 300 species. Most are evergreen long-lived perennial plants growing from the understory as lianas, bushes or climbing plants. The best-known species is the edible Asparagus officinalis, commonly referred to as just asparagus. Some other members of the genus, such as Asparagus densiflorus, are grown as ornamental plants.

The genus includes a variety of living forms, occurring from rainforest to semi-desert habitats; many are climbing plants.

Picking up asparagus in Gavà last century

The differences among them came from the communities and ecosystems in which they occur, and the ecological and evolutionary processes that keep them functioning, yet ever changing and adapting. Most are dispersed by birds.

Ornamental species such as Asparagus plumosus, Asparagus aethiopicus, Asparagus setaceus, and Asparagus virgatus are finely branched and are misleadingly known as asparagus fern.

In the Macaronesian Islands, several species, such as Asparagus umbellatus and Asparagus scoparius, grow in moist laurel forest habitat, and preserve the original form of a leafy vine.

In the drier Mediterranean climate the asparagus genus evolved in the Tertiary into thorny, drought-adapted species. Root tubers are storage organs developed by Asparagus spp. and are a valuable source of moisture and nutrition for species growing under drought conditions.

Many species, particularly from Africa, were once included in separate genera such as Protasparagus and Myrsiphyllum. However, partly in response to the implications of the discovery of new species, those genera have been reunited under Asparagus.

Species in this genus vary in their appearance, from unarmed herbs to wiry, woody climbers with formidable hooked spines that earn them vernacular names such as cat thorn and wag 'n bietjie, literally wait a bit. Most species have photosynthetic flattened stems, called phylloclades, instead of true leaves. 

Asparagus officinalis, Asparagus schoberioides, and Asparagus cochinchinensis are dioecious species, with male and female flowers on separate plants.

More information: BBC Good Food

Good asparagus needs minimal treatment

and is best eaten with few other ingredients.

Yotam Ottolenghi