English speakers once called asparagus sparrow grass, and meant it
In 1791 one writer complained that the word asparagus sounded stiff and pedantic because everyone said sparrowgrass. Rural East Anglia kept the folk name into the 20th century. The plant behind it is a salt-tolerant perennial whose edible spears turn woody fast once they open, and China now grows most of the world's supply.
Garden asparagus is a perennial native to Eurasia, usually reaching 100 to 150 centimetres, occasionally 3.5 metres. What look like feathery leaves are actually needle-like modified stems called cladodes, clustered in rosettes. Plants are usually either male or female, and the female ones bear small red berries that are toxic to people. Its genome has been sequenced as a model for studying how sex chromosomes evolve in plants. Botanists once lumped it with onions and garlic in the lily family; genetics now places it in its own family, Asparagaceae.
The English name comes from classical Latin, though an older English form, sperage, came from Medieval Latin. The Greek source word is of uncertain origin. Folk etymology then bent it into sparrow grass, which John Walker in 1791 found so universal that the proper word seemed affected.
Its coastal ancestry explains an old gardening trick. Asparagus tolerates soil too salty for ordinary weeds, so growers used to sprinkle salt on its beds, at the cost of ruining the ground for anything else. Only young spears are eaten, because once the buds open the shoots toughen. Thickness reflects the age of the plant, not the stalk, and male plants tend to give thinner spears. Italy near Albenga developed a purple type, sweeter and less fibrous, which can turn green when cooked.
Year-round imports have made green asparagus less of a luxury, but Europe still celebrates its short season; in the UK it traditionally runs from 23 April to Midsummer Day, often served in French style with Hollandaise or melted butter. Raw spears are 93 percent water, and 100 grams supply about 20 calories. World output reached 8.9 million tonnes in 2024, with China producing 87 percent.
Source: Asparagus
