为何白芦笋价格不菲？

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Why White Asparagus Is So Expensive

Narrator: The first thing you notice about this asparagus is its color. But that’s only the beginning. White asparagus has a much thicker stalk than the common green variety. And...

Erwin Schröttner: The white ones, they’re a little bit sweeter. Sweeter and juicier.

Narrator: Aficionados refer to this vegetable as white gold, and they’re willing to pay three times more for it than green asparagus because of its distinct flavor.

Erwin Schröttner: I have clients calling me starting in January. “When is the asparagus coming?”

Narrator: But since white asparagus and green asparagus are the exact same plant, growing the perfect colorless stalk to fetch the highest price requires special preparation, specialized tools, and a race against the sun. So, what exactly does it take to turn asparagus white? And why is it so expensive?

Erwin Schröttner: I am the spargel king. OK? That’s all I need. There’s nothing else I need for lunch or dinner.

Narrator: Erwin Schröttner is the head chef at Cafe Katja in New York City, one of the few places outside Europe that serves spargel, or white asparagus. The restaurant offers a special menu every spring.

Erwin Schröttner: I look at this. Those are the asparagus what I’m looking forward. They’re as thick as my hand. Even though we are at the end of the season this year, the asparagus is still amazing. Do you hear that crack? It’s just gorgeous.

Narrator: Since white asparagus predominantly grows in Central and Western European countries like Germany, Austria, and France, Erwin must import all the white asparagus he serves in his restaurant, and it’s not cheap. Very early in the spring, a case can cost as much as $25 per pound, according to Erwin.

Erwin Schröttner: I can’t do it. I can’t touch it at that price. I do have to wait until it comes down a little bit too. Otherwise, I have to charge $100 for a dish.

Narrator: Because of the high import price, he charges anywhere from $24 for a small sampler portion to $46 for a main asparagus dish with a side of roast duck. He says he goes through anywhere from 120 to 180 white-asparagus stalks per day. By mid-June, he’s already down to his very last case.

Erwin Schröttner: And here you can see a case of beautiful, beautiful, large asparagus. I just love when I see this. So far this year – this was 11 pounds in a case – I have done 180 cases.

Narrator: The reason chefs like Erwin are willing to pay such high prices for white asparagus goes back to the laborious and time-intensive process it takes to grow it on specialized farms like this one in Beelitz, Germany.

It’s spargel season. For just three months a year, the delicacy draws crowds from all over the country for food and festivities. White asparagus thrives in loose, sandy soil like the type found around Beelitz.

Jürgen Jakobs: Because then it grows quickly and perhaps tastes sweet. You can also grow asparagus in other soils. The only problem is if it’s grown in clay or loam, then the asparagus can grow slower, can become more bitter.

Narrator: Jürgen Jakobs and his brother Josef harvest about 1.5 million kilograms of asparagus per year on their 618 acres of farmland. Although they do grow green asparagus, over 90% of their crop is the more valuable white variety. Since green asparagus and white asparagus are actually the same plant, the color it will become depends entirely on how it’s raised.

Once an asparagus stalk pops out of the ground, it’s exposed to the sun and produces chlorophyll. The tip will initially turn slightly purple and then green with more exposure. The trick to keeping it white is letting the plant grow as large as possible underground. Then, once it emerges from the earth, farmers must harvest it before it has a chance to turn green. To accomplish this, they build mounds of dirt around the asparagus and then cover the rows of crops in these foil tarps.

The foil reflects the sunlight away from the plant and helps prevent the coloration of the stalks. It also helps maintain the temperature of the plants underground, which means that Jürgen’s farm can control the asparagus yield based on current demand and weather.

Jürgen Jakobs: And that means we can install a management system via the foil system and control the asparagus harvest. And say, we want more asparagus now: turn the black side outwards. We want less asparagus: turn the white side outwards. And we can also regulate the market a little bit so that we don’t have supply when there’s no demand or we do have supply when the demand is soaring.

Narrator: And demand soars in the spring. The official asparagus season starts in mid-April and ends around June 24th, the feast day of St. John the Baptist. And the strict June cutoff date is crucial to the future of the crop.

Jürgen Jakobs: That’s the same date every year because otherwise, if the asparagus continued to be harvested, the bush it grows from would basically die. It would lose its vigor.

Narrator: Each asparagus stem produces about 15 shoots over the course of three months. Since asparagus is a perennial crop, the same plant will continue to produce stalks for eight to 10 years. Once the white asparagus heads appear through the mound, each stalk is removed carefully one at a time using a special asparagus knife called a spargelstecher.

The trick is to put two fingers into the soil to find the stalk, insert the knife, and pluck it at just the right spot so you don’t destroy the crown or roots. While much of the harvesting is done by hand, Jürgen says the farm has automated some of the processes over time to increase production.

Jürgen Jakobs: Yes, asparagus picking is mainly a very manual operation. The working utensils are relatively simple, the picking knife and theoretical asparagus basket. That’s how it was in the past.

Narrator: Today, instead of the asparagus basket, there are harvesting aids. The harvesting aids drive battery-powered over the field.

Jürgen Jakobs: In earlier times, I’d say, a good harvester could harvest 60 to 80 kilograms of asparagus per day. Today, a good field worker harvests an average of 240 kilos a day.

Narrator: The harvested asparagus is immediately brought inside for cleaning and sorting. And speed is crucial, since white asparagus will begin to spoil only about 10 days after harvesting.

Jürgen Jakobs: After it’s been harvested, it has to be taken to the yard relatively promptly. That means, if possible, immediately within the next two hours. It has to be cooled down relatively quickly. It is washed so that the dirt from the field does not settle.

Narrator: Workers sort the asparagus by quality. The most expensive spargel is pure white, perfectly straight, and thick. But some might have purple color to them, a thinner stalk, or a curved shape, which can decrease the price by several euros. Any asparagus that doesn’t make the cut will return to the farm for use as compost.

The spargel that passes the quality checks can be sold locally for anywhere from 6 to 10 euros per kilogram, depending on the year. It’s also shipped abroad, where export prices can exceed that range due to the spargel’s short shelf life and the speed required in shipping. That’s how it ends up in restaurant kitchens around the world, like Erwin’s.

Unlike green asparagus, white asparagus must be peeled before it can be eaten, since the long time spent underground causes it to develop a tough, thick outer layer.

Erwin Schröttner: A case like this, it will take me six to seven minutes. There are 42 to 48 asparagus in there. Depends on size. And then you just tack, tack, tack, tack, tack. It just goes. And the skin is flying off.

Narrator: White asparagus is also typically boiled in its own stock, made from these peeled skins.

Erwin Schröttner: Two lemons is perfect for my pot here, and I just put this into the water, and we have some salt. That’s all we need here to get the water going.

Narrator: The ends of stalks are also snapped off.

Erwin Schröttner: Beautiful. Ah, that was a good one.

Narrator: And then trimmed to a uniform length before being placed in the stock and boiled for about 10 minutes.

Erwin Schröttner: And let them boil.

Narrator: Now they’re ready for plating.

Erwin Schröttner: Fine-dining restaurants in Europe, when I did this, we had very crisp still. If you do this at home and you eat it right away, you might want to go another two minutes.

Narrator: The most traditional dish, and the most popular one at Cafe Katja, is boiled asparagus smothered in hollandaise sauce and served with a side of potatoes.

Erwin Schröttner: Some parsley potatoes. That’s all I need. There’s nothing else I need for lunch or dinner. I absolutely don’t miss any proteins on this one. There’s definitely proteins in the egg in the hollandaise. That’s enough.

Narrator: He also serves a version covered in lemon vinaigrette with prosciutto and croutons. While demand for white asparagus is as strong as ever, both in Europe and at restaurants abroad like Cafe Katja, the industry hasn’t been immune to recent international crises.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, seasonal workers at asparagus farms weren’t allowed to cross the border into Germany, inciting fear of a spargel shortage. The German government was forced to pass an emergency bill allowing them into the country. And with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, rising utility costs and inflation led to European citizens spending less on items like luxury vegetables.

Jürgen Jakobs: People are reaching into their pockets again. They’re buying asparagus. They’re saying, OK, all this discussion about cost increases seems like it might have been inflated.” Inflation is going back down, energy prices are down, utility bills seem to be normalizing, and people are willing to spend again. So that really suits us in our asparagus and strawberry fields. People are buying again, and that’s where we’re very happy.

Narrator: And at Cafe Katja, as the season draws to a close, Erwin is already thinking about next year.

Erwin Schröttner: For me, cooking and preparing and peeling the asparagus, actually, I’m looking forward to it every year. And it’s a little bit of meditation. The skin is flying off. We fly them in from Europe. They are not shipped, because their shelf life is not that long. The asparagus, I really take pride of it, because my asparagus menu, so far, I have not seen anywhere in United States who has such an extensive menu as we do.