Skip to main content

Featured Posts

The Wild Asparagus Hunters are Out and About

It´s that time of year. Cars parked in odd places, the solitary person - usually a man, popping up above a bank or from behind an olive tree. The hunters of the wild aparagus are here. The plentiful rain scattered with a day or two of sunshine has brought them out in droves. Some have their route, others instinctively know where to go. They appear, walking back to their cars, with a huge bundle of foot long green spears of asparagus. And off they go, probably not to be seen for another year - or another week if the rain continues. No matter how hard the shoots try and hide the older men hunt them down with stick in hand, to fob off the spiky old growth, and uncover the tender new stems of wild asparagus. Everyone has their favourite way of cooking them but the most common seems to be in a Tortilla - the thick Spanish potato omelette to which you can add anything that comes to hand - or is hunted down. My one or two shorter stem finds don´t come close to the experienced hunters catch. I...
Read more
Labels

Capering Around – It´s Caper Time

It´s the time of year again when bottoms are in the air as gatherers hunt through exotic blossoms to uncover their harvest among the wild scrambling plant you probably call capers, here they´re known as alcaparrones.



I´d been rather confused about what exactly a caper is, which I´ve now put right. In Spain alcaparrones are the fruit or berry, the flower bud and the plant (Capparis spinosa). It seems that in the UK capers are the tiny pickled flower buds and caper berries are the fruit, which are also eaten pickled.


The low-growing shrub supposedly originated in Asia but is now found all across the Mediterranean countries. The word caper is thought to have come from the Latin capra which means goat and could be because of the overpowering smell of the bud.



Here in Spain it´s the fruit that´s most sort after to be pickled and served as tapas, just as olives are. Both fruit and buds can be pickled in vinegar or brine. The bud is very astringent and cannot be eaten raw but when pickled it has a peppery heat.


Click on any photo to see it enlarged and pick out the buds and the berries.


Labels:

Popular Posts