Can a vegetable create an international incident?

In this episode, Caroline and Emily explore the surprising story of how French president François Hollande's dislike of asparagus nearly became a diplomatic controversy during a state visit to Germany.

Along the way, they examine why France pays such close attention to what political leaders eat, how asparagus became one of the country's most beloved seasonal ingredients, and why French food culture places such importance on seasonality, terroir, and waiting for the right moment to enjoy a product.

From Louis XIV's obsession with year-round asparagus to modern asparagus festivals, this episode reveals how one vegetable can tell a much bigger story about France.

Podcast Show Notes

A French president who hated asparagus.

A German chancellor serving asparagus during asparagus season.

A diplomatic misunderstanding that almost became political gossip.

This episode begins with a strange story from a state dinner but quickly becomes an exploration of something much bigger: the relationship between food, identity, and power in France.

Caroline and Emily discuss:

• Why French leaders are often judged by what they eat
• The François Hollande asparagus controversy
• Marie Antoinette food myths
• Louis XIV's obsession with asparagus
• Why France embraces seasonality
• The difference between green, white, and purple asparagus
• French asparagus festivals and traditions
• Protected geographical status for asparagus
• Why asparagus season only lasts a few weeks
• Caroline's unexpected asparagus origin story

Key Takeaways

• Food choices can become political statements in France.
• François Hollande's dislike of asparagus nearly created a diplomatic controversy during a visit to Germany.
• Louis XIV pushed gardeners to make asparagus available year-round.
• White, green, and purple asparagus are not different species.
• France strongly values seasonality and eating products at their peak.
• White asparagus is particularly prized in parts of France and Germany.
• Some French asparagus regions have protected geographical status.
• Many French people see waiting for seasonal products as part of what makes them special.

• • • • • • • • • •

Fishwives of Paris is the podcast that dives into the surprising stories, myths, and realities behind French food, wine, and culture. Hosted by Emily Monaco and Caroline Fazeli.

Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to Fishwives of Paris!

You can watch the podcast in 4k on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@fishwivesofparis

Website: https://www.fishwivesofparis.com/

Instagram: https://instagram.com/fishwivesofparis

Tiktok: https://tiktok.com/@fishwivesofparis

Bonjour, Emily.

Bonjour, Caroline.

We are The Real Fish Wives to Paris, and today we're going to talk about a vegetable that caused an international incident.

Ooh, an international incident! What happened?

Oh, I don't know. You tell me.

That's fair.

So the vegetable we're going to talk about is asparagus.

Ooh, the one that's right in front of me?

That one, yeah.

Okay, okay.

These asparagus. And in 2016, asparagus almost caused a rift between the French President, François Hollande at the time, and Angela Merkel.

Angela Merkel, okay.

Because the Germans, they love asparagus.

They do.

And typically the French do too. And I mean, I think that the reason this caused such a fracas is in.

It's not a fracas?

A fracas. A fracas.

A kerfuffle? A kerfuffle?

A big ol', a big ol' howdy doody.

A quandary?

A pickle.

A pickle?

A pickle.

A pickle.

It was problematic. But it was problematic because we, in the world in general, but in France specifically, have long cared a lot about what people in power eat or don't eat, as the case may be.

Ah, yes.

So I think, you know, we one of the most famous, probably, allusions to this is Marie Antoinette ostensibly saying. I think the word "ostensible" is going to be bandied around a lot.

Yeah, because this is absolutely not true, this story.

No. Marie Antoinette ostensibly hearing that the people of Paris are starving in the lead-up to the French Revolution, and goes, "Ah, well, if the people of Paris can't afford bread, let them eat cake."

She never said that.

She definitely didn't say. If she had said it, the French quote her as having said, "Let them eat brioche," which we will need to do an episode about at some later date. So that's not cake.

Fantasy bread.

Fantasy bread, indeed. Such a fantasy bread. She didn't say that either. The first person we have attributed to saying that was a Polish princess who was born way before Marie Antoinette. Marie Antoinette, though, we were very interested by what she did or did not eat. Mostly did not.

Yeah, she probably was not eating much in those courses.

She wasn't eating much. She was very disinterested in food. And she's not the only powerful French person to have been disinterested in food. Napoleon I, palate of a small child, really didn't like very much of anything. Mostly ate lentils and chicken.

I just don't think people like that are trustworthy.

I really I mean, isn't it who is it who said that the best people like butter? Is that Julia Child?

Probably.

I think it is, where she's like, you know, you shouldn't trust someone who doesn't like butter.

I yeah.

And that's the reason why, in France, you know, when we look at the people of power, we look at people like Louis XIV, who literally had to eat publicly. Like, he had to eat for an audience as part of his royal duties.

Didn't they also have to, like, get down in front of people to prove that they were consummating the marriage?

That I don't know, but I do know that you were allowed to come to the Queen's dressing ceremony and also to see her give birth. How do you feel about that as a pregnant person?

I hate that so much.

Yeah.

I hate it. That poor woman.

So the reason why we care so much about what people in power eat or don't eat is because we get this sense that we're basically turning a person in power into a person. We get an idea of who they are, we decide, are they trustworthy or not.

I actually got the opportunity to interview this professor of food studies, Ken Albala, who said that what someone eats seems to us to reveal a part of their character.

So to let us know if they're open to trying new things, if they have fairly, you know, cadidian, banal tastes, or if they're, you know, open to new ideas. We see a little bit about who this person is, or we think we see a little bit about who this person is, through their food choices.

There's definitely a lot of judgment in that, and projection, because it's I mean, and I definitely am somebody that is judging people that are really picky. It's annoying. It's annoying to be trying to dine with or feed someone who has a lot of food restrictions.

It's true. But then also, as someone in power, I think, especially in a country like France, which is such an agricultural country, you have this kind of feeling that the person who's representing the French abroad should be representing all of France abroad.

And French cuisine is such a huge part of the conception of French people abroad.

If you hadn't noticed already, food is important in France.

It's important. And it's important to the world conception. And it's important to the world view of France. Like, the rest of the world sees France as a food place.

Right. And so if we look at the people who've been in power in France over time, not just our kings and queens, but even if we look in the modern era at who's been president, right?

We have Charles de Gaulle. Charles de Gaulle is sort of a larger-than-life sort of person, and he is attributed with lots of quotes that he may or may not have said. One of my favorites is, of course, that he said that it was impossible to govern a country with 246 cheeses. He probably didn't say that. But it shows us, okay, the French are thinking of themselves in terms of food.

And he has an awareness of the country's food.

And of the innate regionality of the country's food.

I feel like in the States, we don't quite have that same vibe. You know, George H.W. Bush hated broccoli and refused to eat it, and so didn't broccoli farmers, like, deliver a bunch of broccoli to the White House to be like, "Bruh, you got to give us a chance now."

Yeah, they were so he was he was kind of acting like a child, like he got into the White House and was like, "My mom made me eat broccoli. Now I'm president of the United States. I don't have to eat broccoli anymore." And it just it sounded uneducated.

I mean, it I'm sorry. You're a little man baby. Like, you get to decide if you eat broccoli or not a lot sooner than becoming president.

Right. And I think the same kind of thing happened when we had the great orange president. The not-so-great. The orange the orange dude.

The one we still have?

The one we still have.

Yeah.

The first time we had him, he came to France and was, you know, honored with this meal with Emmanuel Macron, and someone called him in advance of the meal, or called his people, to find out what he ate.

Nothing.

And they said, you know, "meatloaf," and so they served him pâté en croûte.

I bet he didn't eat it.

I don't think so. But I mean, we see in France, I mean, so in the States, I think, we see that sort of pickiness. We see this pickiness of George H.W. Bush. Then we see people like Barack Obama, and specifically Michelle Obama, who are using the platform to sort of encourage healthfulness.

Healthfulness. And they are they certainly come across as people that are going to eat what you put in front of them, because they're polite.

Sure.

And because they're curious and worldly people who like different cuisines.

Right. And that was something we saw as well with Jackie Onassis. You know, she was, you know, embracing this sort of francophile mindset, having French food in the White House. You know, so in the States, I feel like it's very much a question of diplomacy.

In France, it always kind of feels like a question, partially of diplomacy, which is we're going to get into as we talk about our crazy event of asparagus, but also it's a question of making sure that you actually accurately represent the people.

So the fact that what we eat represents the French people is something that means that these days, officially, it's actually kind of taboo for people close to the French president to talk too much about what he I was going to say he or she, but so far it's only just been he. We have the same problems. But what he eats, we're not really supposed to officially communicate about the president's personal preferences.

Because we know that they will be ripped apart.

Exactly. Already when presidents choose to display what they do or do not eat, we can have, you know, cataclysmic events like Nicolas Sarkozy deciding to remove the cheese course from French lunches to save time, or very, you know, very publicly saying that he doesn't drink wine.

I'm sorry. You cannot be French president and not drink wine. Also, we know that he does drink. Aren't there images and videos of him drinking?

I mean, I think so, but also, like, officially, he and Carla Bruni say that he doesn't drink, and he says, "I've never touched a drop of alcohol." Other presidents have endeared themselves to the French by consuming a little bit of everything, Jack Chirac probably being the most famous, but this is the problem.

It's a little more than.

A little bit. A little more than a little bit. But he said that his favorite dish was tête de veau, which is veal's head.

Ugh.

And or calf's head.

I'm too American for that.

But after saying, "My favorite dish is calf's head," suddenly every small village in France he goes to, he's being served calf's head.

Yeah.

And so even his official French, you know, his official chef is like, "Yeah, I think he liked it."

Yeah.

But did he love it enough to eat it on every single trip to every small village? I'm not sure.

That's not to say anything.

Right. And so this is actually the problem that gets us to this potential international crisis, is whether or not we actually communicate about what the president likes or doesn't like.

You got to tell me. How could asparagus, which, you know, is not controversial, cause a quandary, a fracas, a fracas?

So basically the problem is that François Hollande, despite not necessarily being supposed to publicly talk about it, does have two vegetables, or did have two vegetables that he really didn't like.

Okay.

Asparagus and artichokes. And he went for his first official state visit to Germany and was served asparagus and this sort of breaded and fried escalope, like a cut of meat that had been breaded and fried.

Okay.

And so at first, this seemed like, "Oh, is it just a mistake?" And then the intrigue kind of heightened, because it turns out that this was actually Nicolas Sarkozy's favorite meal to be served when he was in Germany.

Ah.

And Nicolas Sarkozy is sort of a center-right party sort of fellow, much like Angela and François Hollande was a member of the Socialist Party. And so it was like, is this a deliberate move to give François Hollande something he's not going to like that also was his right-leaning predecessor's favorite meal, or is this just a cock-up that happened because it's May and asparagus are in season in May?

The Germans go really hard for asparagus. This is, like, their national vegetable. They have, like, festivals for it. They're obsessed. So if he was visiting Germany in May, it makes sense that he would have asparagus.

Yeah.

So I kind of like Angela Merkel. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt on this one.

We'll give her a pass on that one.

We'll give her a pass on this one.

Yeah.

Although if it was shade, it's also brilliant.

It's you know what? If you're going to throw shade, do it with a vegetable.

Yeah.

That's great.

Yeah.

A long aside, though, France does really like asparagus, generally speaking.

Yeah, I mean, it's very.

Perhaps not as much as the Germans.

I feel like we have more to be excited about. And so for them, they really just have beer and asparagus.

Yeah.

That's about it. And so for us, there's a lot of wonderful seasonal vegetables that are very popular in France, but asparagus is special.

And asparagus is something that, during its very short window, you are going to see on every restaurant menu. It's something that I purchase a lot of in the moments that it is available.

And we eat a lot at home, we eat a lot when we're out and about, and we take the opportunity to consume in quantity.

Yeah. These days, we're growing about 20,000 tons of asparagus in France, and it's been here for a long time. It does have a season.

However, we've been growing it out of season for quite some time, because Louis XIV loved it so much. So again, this impact of a person in power on what we eat.

Louis XIV loved asparagus. He wanted us to be able to eat it all year long, and so he actually kind of forced his gardener in Versailles to grow asparagus, to figure out a way to grow asparagus 365 days a year so that he could have it whenever he wanted.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Because, yeah, asparagus I mean, I remember growing up in the States and eating asparagus and not liking it. But, you know, I grew up in California, where I think now there's much more focus on seasonality.

But in the '90s, like, everything was available and we ate asparagus whenever we wanted. And I still see that most of the States is still like that. Like, people just don't even know. They don't care. They don't know. So you don't know how bad your shitty asparagus from Peru is.

Yeah. Well, I think and that's something that I see often when I'm running food tours in Paris, I often will take people to the markets and show them, you know, what's in season. And they're really surprised to find that, you know, if you come to Paris in December, it's not that the strawberries are crappy, it's that you cannot find them.

They're not being right. They're not being grown.

They're not being grown.

And they are crappy.

Yeah.

Like, why would you eat a strawberry in February?

Yeah.

It's not good. And asparagus, though I mean, strawberries at least have a multi-month window.

Right.

Strawberries are good from May to September, you know, maybe even October. Asparagus is good for, like, six weeks.

Right.

You know, asparagus is May and a little bit around the edges, and that's about it. I mean, it depends on the year, right? But.

Yeah.

It's a short window.

It is. And it's expensive. It's a luxury.

It's expensive. Yeah.

But it is something, you know, when I first moved back to France, so I was probably it was probably in 2011 or 2012. So I was kind of a relatively new arrival. I'd been here for maybe three years. I thought I knew everything, but I didn't know everything.

And I met a friend of a new friend, an American. We were working at the same wine bar, and we were trying it was a wine tasting company. And we were, you know, swapping notes on what we missed most about America.

And it was like, oh, you know, 24-hour pharmacies and Oreos and, I don't know, Jolly Ranchers, Fluffer Nutters, whatever it was. And she's like, "Oh, my God, you know what I really miss is asparagus."

You were like, "What?"

And I was like, "What are you fucking talking about? We have asparagus." And then I realized she had moved maybe two months before, and it was January.

She just didn't know.

So she just didn't know that the asparagus were coming.

Yeah.

They're the best asparagus you've ever had in your life, too. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

That's funny.

So but, yeah, I mean, the seasonality of asparagus is definitely part of what makes it so fun and delicious to consume when it's good.

Absolutely. Yeah. It's such a moment. Like, I have an asparagus story, too, but it's a little darker than yours.

Let's hear your dark asparagus story.

International incident, and then a dark asparagus story.

I cannot wait for I cannot wait for a dark asparagus story.

It's fucked up. It's fucked up. I know. You don't even know, but.

So tell me.

I'll tell you. So asparagus was the first vegetable that I I just told you that I didn't like it when I was growing up. I thought it was mushy, disgusting, weird, soggy, freak show. But when I was 13, I was actually sent to wilderness boot camp in the desert in Utah. You know those places?

Wow.

Yeah.

Okay.

They still exist, too, which is insane that that is legal. And basically, we were moving around every single day. You had your pack. They took your shoes at night so you couldn't run away. And we would hike for, like, eight hours a day, and we would have to carry all our own food, but once a week, there would be, like, a delivery of food.

And I will never forget the day that we had asparagus in that delivery, because you don't have any fresh food. You're eating, like, pre-cooked bacon and peanut butter on a tortilla, you know? We had asparagus. We had something green. We had something real. And we cooked it in butter, you know, in a bowl over the fire, and I just remember nothing ever tasted better than that.

I had never understood why anyone would like vegetables, really. I wasn't, like, an anti-vegetable kid, but I was, like, into it. And then I was like, "Oh, this." And so now every year, the first asparagus, that's my little ritual for myself.

I will buy that shit. I'll, you know, get a pack of 12 or something. I'll eat them all. That's my lunch. Because they're starchy. They're a good lunch, and I just cook them in butter and eat them with my fingers. So.

God.

That's my dark asparagus story. Wilderness boot camp.

I mean, that's it's the setting is dark, but I think that the conclusion is actually really great. Like, and I think that sort of scarcity and then reward.

Yeah.

Is part of what I love so much about eating seasonally in France. Obviously, I'm not in wilderness boot camp. I'm just in my normal life, and then suddenly there's asparagus. But it is kind of an exciting moment when they come into season.

Well, so, like, let's be honest. These were not easy to find, because this is not actually asparagus season when we're recording this right now. And you had to go around to find these and go to a bunch of different places, right?

Well, and typically what's interesting is that when it is in season, when it's April and May, you go to the market and you don't find just one kind of asparagus in France.

Oh, yeah.

You find multiple colors. We were able to find one kind of semi-sad bunch of Spanish asparagus, Spanish green asparagus, with about three inches of woody stalk at the bottom of them. When you are when it's in the high season, you get green ones, you get fat ones, you get thin ones, you get white ones.

Purple ones?

You get purple ones.

The purple ones turn green when you cook them, but I like to buy the purple ones. They're so pretty.

You get the little extremely skinny, wild ones.

It has little forest ones.

Yeah, they almost look like wheat stalks.

Yeah, they look like wheat.

So we have such a variety.

Yeah.

So can you tell me a little bit?

But this is, like, typical, like, American asparagus.

This is typical American asparagus.

And honestly, this I think, for considering that it's not asparagus season, these look okay. But, like.

Yeah.

What are we going to do with these? Are you going to cook them? No.

I mean.

We'll trim them and we'll see what happens. Give them to someone you hate, you know?

I mean, I'll probably roast them, because then they'll taste like something.

Yeah.

But in France, typically, we actually treat them quite delicately. And the preference in France is usually for the fat white ones.

Yeah. They love the fat white ones. And those are really interesting, because they're actually fully buried, right? They're grown buried so they don't get chloroform.

Chlorophyll.

Chlorophyll.

Chloroform would kill you.

So they're fully buried so they don't get chlorophyll, and they stay white, and they are supposedly more tender, although I don't find that. I don't prefer them. But they're more closed on top. The, like, top of the spears, the little flower, is more is tighter, it's more closed. They tend to be sort of squatter. They're a little more phallic, I would say.

Yeah, they are. Yeah, they're way fatter. They're definitely more phallic. And they're so, so sought after in France. And it's one of these luxury products that, for me, having grown up on the green ones, I there's a couple of things that fall into this category in France where people are, like, so excited about it and they spend so much money on them, and I'm kind of like.

Eh. That's how I feel about them, too.

But you do find them in a couple different regions in France. You find them in the Camargue, which is such a cool region, like, sort of a bog region known for its flamingos and rice patties and salts. We will definitely have to talk more about the Camargue moving forward. But you also find white asparagus a lot in Alsace.

You mean Germany?

Ha ha.

Oops.

Oh, no. The Alsatians are going to come for us. But, yeah, I mean, it makes sense that we're so we're in a neighboring region to Germany. So in Alsace specifically, there's actually a brotherhood that does this festival every year. And the French food brotherhoods are some of the wackiest things you'll ever see. They have the best

costumes, right?

They have such good costumes. But, I mean, I think the closest thing that America has culturally to the French food brotherhoods is the whole tradition of Groundhog Day. Like, you get people dressed in old-timey clothes.

Okay.

And they go and do a weird ritualistic thing that, if you explain it to a foreigner like, when I explained Groundhog Day.

I'm a West Coast person, so for me, you are I am a foreigner.

Okay.

So when I explained Groundhog Day to my French ex, it was like I was trying to explain it, and the more I explained it, the more I was like, this is actually unhinged.

So basically, you there's you there's a place in Pennsylvania, a bunch of people gather around a very specific groundhog hole, and the groundhog emerges. And if the groundhog sees his shadow, then he gets scared and goes back into the hole, and that means we're going to get six more weeks of winter. But if he doesn't see his shadow, then it's only two more weeks of winter.

That's weird.

It's very weird.

Yeah. I just know about, like, Bill Murray in Mini Driver.

Sure. That's

my Groundhog Day experience.

So with the asparagus, what happens is the brotherhood gathers. They all wear tricorn, like, triangle hats, like Napoleonic style hats. And then the a woman, a young woman in a tiara and a gown, ceremonially digs up the very first asparagus of the season, and that launches asparagus season every year in Alsace.

And then they sacrifice her.

And then they behead her. No. Then they all eat asparagus.

That is that is very silly, but I love that shit. I love I love these weird there's something there's every village has some weird thing.

They do.

And I love it.

Yeah. So the other region that's really well-known for asparagus is Nouvelle-Aquitaine, and this is another region where we're going to get a very sandy soil. So specifically, the Land is going to be so well-known for its asparagus grown in sandy soil that it actually has an IGP for white asparagus.

Oh, that's cool. You know, we talk a lot about the AOC and the IGP for wine. So IGP is a broader classification that is also EU protected as well. Indication géographique protégée. And so we do have a lot of IGP wines, but we also get a lot of we also get a lot of IGPs for other foods. Do we get AOPs for food? We do as well.

There's definitely AOCs. There's AOPs. All the cheeses, if they have an AO anything, it's all AOPs.

Are there vegetable AOPs? There are. There's, like, olives, right?

There's olives. There's lentils.

Lentils, yeah.

So the pre-lentil. There's a walnut.

The Grenoble walnut.

The Grenoble walnut, and potentially a second walnut.

Okay.

Some hams that have an AOP.

It's not a vegetable.

Not a vegetable, but a food. So this IGP, they got it in 2005. It has there's 150 producers in the IGP. The IGP requires that the asparagus be harvested by hand.

Okay.

And they also have to be transferred to a cool place within four hours of being harvested.

Stay good.

So it means that you keep them.

They're asparagus is really funny, because they grow in this way that looks fake. Like, they literally just, like, bloop up out of the ground, just, like, little fingers standing up. They're so weird. Like, if you look at if you Google, like, asparagus farm, it looks so dumb.

Yeah.

It looks fake.

It does.

But you kind of have to harvest that one at a time, because it's a one-at-a-time thing.

Yeah.

They're not in, like, bunches. They're just, like, little individual.

Plucking them out of the soil.

Little fingers.

Yeah. And that's another place where they do have another fun festival. But this is one that is maybe more fun to go to if you want to eat a bunch of asparagus. So it's in late March. It's in a village called Mont du Maison. And every year they invite a bunch of top chefs to come and cook asparagus, from appetizer through dessert.

I'm not sure about the latter, but.

Yeah.

I do love asparagus. I would go to that.

I've had some cool Jerusalem artichoke desserts, but asparagus dessert, I'm I think it might be too much and I'm a vegetable lover, but it might be too much even for me.

I mean, yeah. I mean, I guess they have to do it. Every time I go to a Michelin-star restaurant and there's something like that, I'm like, can you just not?

Yeah.

Can you just make me fucking chocolate? Something normal, please.

So that's for our white asparagus. But then we also have other colors. We have purple asparagus.

I love the purple.

So what do you what do you love about the purple ones?

They're just pretty.

Yeah.

But they turn green when you cook them anyway. They're just pretty. It's just pretty I like having pretty vegetables, you know? It's sort of fun to buy them, and they're so lovely.

Yeah.

Yeah. They're quite dark.

They are. So it's actually all the same variety, which I think is interesting. It's that same idea of filtering the amount of light that's allowed to get through to them.

Interesting.

So because they have a bit more light, they turn purple. And you can see, I mean, even on a green asparagus, there is a purple tinge. And so they because they have more light, they have a little bit more of an intensity in flavor. They're a little nuttier. And I guess I guess the only way to preserve that color would be to serve them raw.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you can. You can shave asparagus, make a little salad. I would really only do that with the freshest ones.

Yeah.

But I usually cook them in a little bit of water and butter. So basically, like, you know, in a sauté pan, a third to a half a cup of water, just to make sure they don't burn, and they kind of steam and with a knob of butter and salt and pepper, and then you just cook it till it's done, you know?

And I don't necessarily snap each one. I will snap one and then just kind of line it up and cut, because you can lose a lot if you do the snapping. If they're too woody, I will peel them, too, at the bottom.

Yeah. Yeah. And then the last variety is, of course, the green variety, which I think is the one that most Americans are most familiar with. And you find them pretty easily in France, even out of season. So they're not necessarily going to be grown in France. Most of the asparagus that we get anyway in France comes from Spain.

Yeah.

And especially if it's not in season, it's going to come from Spain.

It comes from Spain. A lot of it comes from Peru, too, but that's probably more likely to go to the States.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot from Peru. There's a lot from Mexico.

Yeah.

But the hardest ones to find, I've found, is the ones that I love the most, which are the ones that I grew up with.

And they're wild.

No, the little the little sort of the green ones, but the pencil-thin ones.

Oh, the really skinny ones?

The skinny ones.

You don't see those as much here.

I don't see them. I don't know if you see them in Lyon, but in Paris, I find them harder to find.

I do see them, but I think that the French like a fatter asparagus.

They do.

They like a thicker one.

Thick boys.

They like a thick boy. The thing is, the thicker they are, you do need to peel them.

Yeah.

So that is often that's probably why I'm doing that more often than not. But they traditionally would serve white ones with the sauce grenoblois.

Oh.

Right? Which is a butter sauce with lemon capers and croutons.

Yeah. And that's really nice. You get a little bit of a crunch. I think they do tend to cook them in, like, à l'anglaise, like, you know, either steam or vapor cook them. They don't tend to get a lot of color on them. You don't see them I feel like in the States, at least when I was growing up.

We love a roasted one. We love a roasted one.

Sheet pan, vegetable.

Yeah. And that's not really a thing here.

No.

So you're usually going to see them when they're in first of all, when they're in season, they're going to be on every single menu.

Everywhere. All the time.

And nine times out of ten, they're going to be in the appetizer list, pretty much on their own.

With maybe that little sauce or the mimosa I really like is, like, a hard-boiled egg vinaigrette.

Ooh.

That's yummy.

Like, chopped up hard-boiled egg.

It's like hard-boiled egg. Yeah, it's almost like a like an egg salad, but thinner.

Yeah. Okay.

You know?

Yeah. Or, like, maybe a hollandaise sauce, potentially.

Yeah, for sure.

Or, like, a mayonnaise.

Yeah, yeah.

Cold with mayonnaise. But, like, sort of, like, asparagus, and then, like, a cold, fatty emulsion.

Yeah.

And that's it.

And that's delicious.

Yeah.

Team asparagus with a cold, fatty emulsion.

Yeah. But it's rarely, like, a side dish.

No.

It's rarely, like, tossed into something else.

You might see, like, a risotto.

Yeah, that's true.

True.

Yeah. But I do think they tend to let asparagus be the star.

Yeah. Because it's also it's quite like I said before, it's quite starchy. Like, it has a lot of heft to it. And so it is something that doesn't need extra carbs.

Right. And also, when you're buying the local, high-quality IGP asparagus, they're not cheap.

No.

Like, you can get a like, a half-kilo bundle of Spanish asparagus for about €10, but the same size of French asparagus will be, like, €20.

Yeah. It's expensive.

It's expensive. So I think it makes sense that when it's in season, we eat as much of it as we can. Like, I got tired of them by the end of this spring. Like, I was like, I can't eat another asparagus. But we eat them, we let them start, and we just, you know, put them on a plate, and that's that's your that's your appetizer, or that's your lunch, if you're Caroline.

I love them. I think they're so yummy. And I wish we had nicer ones to show you.

I know.

By the time this episode airs, I will make some, like, recipe content with all the special asparagus. I'll make some video that we can splice for Instagram so we can see all of the beautiful asparagus that are in season.

Well, yeah. I mean, I think the next by the time this episode airs, so, like, next March or April, I promise I will go through my local market here in Paris and just show you the sheer variety of sizes and colors that you can get with asparagus.

And I think what's so cool about that is that's really a reflection of what France does do so well, which is this idea of taking advantage of terroir, spotlighting a product at its perfect moment, enjoying it then, and then just forgetting about it for another year.

Oh, let it be.

Yeah. Don't don't feel like you need to have access to every single ingredient all the time at your whim.

You don't.

Enjoy the thing when it's here.

Yeah.

And then say goodbye and wait for it to come back.

I really whenever I see, like, content that is, like, talking about asparagus outside of asparagus season, it, like, enrages me. It really makes me angry. So we might be actually doing that in the moment, but this will air during asparagus season.

Yes.

It's very important to us.

Yes.

And I'm pretty pleased that we managed to get through this entire episode without making any dick jokes.

You talked about dicks.

Well, no. I said that the white asparagus are phallic, but that wasn't a dick joke.

That's true.

So.

Well, we're about to sign off. So do you want to make a dick joke?

I'm not that clever.

Oh, damn it.

Yeah. Well, this has been the Real Fish Farms Paris. Thank you for following along with us. And I hope you love asparagus, too. And if you don't, you're a monster.

Or François Hollande.

The same thing.

There you go.

Same Z.

Well, thank you all for joining us. À bientôt.

Au revoir.