Pot O’ Gold                                                                                                                                               Choice Grade                                                                                                                                       Medium White Asparagus Spears                                                                                             Ingredients: Asparagus, water, salt, acidity regulator (E330)                                                       Product of China

I never knew asparagus was green. On very special occasions we ate tinned white asparagus; often baked into a quiche-like pie my mother made. Economic sanctions effecting food imports during apartheid resulted in fierce support for homegrown brands. However, luxury canned goods were available from China.

 

Analysts have compared the behaviour of the crypto currency Bitcoin to Tulip mania; a moment when tulips gripped the Dutch economy and imagination. Being highly coveted, the Dutch would cultivate a single bloom and place it the centre of a garden surrounded with mirrors. They went to great alchemical lengths to encourage a ‘break’ in the flowers which produced flairs of strikingly vivid colours in their petals to increase their value. In the 1920’s, plant pathologists discovered that a virus was responsible for this deviation.

“Blue and white pottery;” literally meaning, “Blue Flowers” developed from 14th century “bluish white ware” in China. Chinese export porcelain produced in the 17th century for European markets depicted Chinese and European scenes. Dutch Delftware became a competitor with imitation motifs on earthenware which reached the East where potters made porcelain versions for export back.

Manet sold Charles Ephrussi ‘Bunch of Asparagus’ (1880) for 800 francs. When Ephrussi sent him 1000, Manet painted a single asparagus spear and sent it to Ephrussi with a note saying,   “There was one missing from your bunch.”