White asparagus, often referred to as "white gold," can cost three times as much as green asparagus. It's colorless, has a much thicker stalk, and is harvested mainly throughout Central Europe for just three months of the year. During this brief period, farms in the area and restaurants around the world offer white-asparagus dishes on their menus. Chef Erwin Schröttner from Cafe Katja in New York City says white asparagus is much juicier than the green variety, and he serves his stalks freshly peeled, boiled, and smothered in hollandaise sauce with various side dishes. But because white asparagus has to be grown in a specialized way that keeps the stalk underground for longer periods of time, these meals come at a premium. Farms like Jakobs-Hof in Beelitz, Germany, work around the clock to make sure their asparagus stalks maintain their pure white color and are of the highest quality.
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00:00 (alarm ringing)
00:03 The first thing you notice about this asparagus
00:05 is its color.
00:07 But that's only the beginning.
00:10 White asparagus has a much thicker stalk
00:14 than the common green variety.
00:17 And...
00:18 - The white ones, they're a little bit sweeter.
00:20 Sweeter and juicier.
00:26 - Aficionados refer to this vegetable as white gold.
00:30 And they're willing to pay three times more for it
00:33 than green asparagus because of its distinct flavor.
00:37 - I have clients calling me starting in January,
00:41 when is the asparagus coming?
00:42 - But since white asparagus and green asparagus
00:45 are the exact same plant,
00:47 growing the perfect colorless stalk
00:50 to fetch the highest price requires special preparation,
00:54 specialized tools, and a race against the sun.
00:58 So what exactly does it take to turn asparagus white?
01:01 And why is it so expensive?
01:03 - I'm the Spargel King.
01:06 That's all I need.
01:10 There's nothing else I need for lunch or dinner.
01:15 - Erwin Schröttner is the head chef at Café Katia
01:17 in New York City, one of the few places outside Europe
01:21 that serves Spargel, or white asparagus.
01:25 The restaurant offers a special menu every spring.
01:28 - Oh, look at this.
01:30 Those are the asparagus what I'm looking forward.
01:33 They're as thick as my hand.
01:35 Even though we are at the end of the season this year,
01:39 the asparagus is still amazing.
01:43 Do you hear that crack?
01:44 It's just gorgeous.
01:46 - Since white asparagus predominantly grows
01:48 in Central and Western European countries
01:50 like Germany, Austria, and France,
01:53 Erwin must import all the white asparagus
01:55 he serves in his restaurant.
01:58 And it's not cheap.
01:59 Very early in the spring,
02:01 a case can cost as much as $25 per pound,
02:04 according to Erwin.
02:06 - I can't do it.
02:07 I can't touch it at that price.
02:09 I do have to wait until it comes down a little bit, too.
02:13 Otherwise, I have to charge $100 for a dish.
02:17 - Because of the high import price,
02:19 he charges anywhere from $24 for a small sampler portion
02:23 to $46 for a main asparagus dish with a side of roast duck.
02:28 He says he goes through anywhere
02:30 from 120 to 180 white asparagus stalks per day.
02:35 By mid-June, he's already down to his very last case.
02:40 - And here you can see
02:45 a case of beautiful, beautiful, large asparagus.
02:50 I just love when I see this.
02:54 So far this year, this was 11 pounds in a case.
02:58 I have done 180 cases.
03:01 - The reason chefs like Erwin
03:05 are willing to pay such high prices for white asparagus
03:08 goes back to the laborious and time-intensive process
03:11 it takes to grow it on specialized farms
03:13 like this one in Beelitz, Germany.
03:15 It's asparagus season.
03:18 For just three months a year,
03:20 the delicacy draws crowds from all over the country
03:23 for food and festivities.
03:25 White asparagus thrives in loose, sandy soil
03:29 like the type found around Beelitz.
03:31 - Because it grows quickly and tastes slightly sweet,
03:35 which is what we have here in Beelitz,
03:36 that's why Beelitz asparagus is so popular.
03:39 You can grow asparagus on other soils.
03:42 The problem is that if you grow it on clay or clay soil,
03:46 the asparagus can grow slower,
03:49 can become bitter, develop more bitter substance.
03:52 - Jürgen Jacobs and his brother, Josef,
03:54 harvest about 1.5 million kilograms of asparagus per year
03:58 on their 618 acres of farmland.
04:01 Although they do grow green asparagus,
04:03 over 90% of their crop is the more valuable white variety.
04:07 Since green asparagus and white asparagus
04:10 are actually the same plant,
04:11 the color it will become depends entirely
04:14 on how it's raised.
04:15 Once an asparagus stalk pops out of the ground,
04:17 it's exposed to the sun and produces chlorophyll.
04:20 The tip will initially turn slightly purple
04:23 and then green with more exposure.
04:25 The trick to keeping it white is letting the plant grow
04:28 as large as possible underground.
04:30 Then, once it emerges from the earth,
04:33 farmers must harvest it before it has a chance to turn green.
04:36 To accomplish this, they build mounds of dirt
04:39 around the asparagus and then cover the rows of crops
04:42 in these foil tarps.
04:43 The foil reflects the sunlight away from the plant
04:47 and helps prevent the coloration of the stalks.
04:50 It also helps maintain the temperature
04:51 of the plants underground,
04:53 which means that Jürgen's farm
04:54 can control the asparagus yield
04:56 based on current demand and weather.
04:58 We can use this foil system,
05:01 a management system, to control the asparagus harvest
05:06 and say we want more asparagus,
05:08 we turn the black side outwards,
05:10 we want less asparagus,
05:12 we turn the white side outwards
05:14 and can thus regulate the market a bit
05:19 so that we don't have an offer if there is no demand
05:22 or no offer if the demand is full.
05:26 And demand soars in the spring.
05:29 The official asparagus season starts in mid-April
05:31 and ends around June 24th,
05:33 the feast day of St. John the Baptist.
05:35 And the strict June cut-off date
05:37 is crucial to the future of the crop.
05:39 Each asparagus stem produces about 15 shoots
05:55 over the course of three months.
05:57 Since asparagus is a perennial crop,
06:00 the same plant will continue to produce stalks
06:03 for eight to ten years.
06:05 Once the white asparagus heads
06:07 appear through the mound,
06:08 each stalk is removed carefully,
06:10 one at a time, using a special asparagus knife
06:13 called a Spargelsticher.
06:15 The trick is to put two fingers into the soil
06:18 to find the stalk, insert the knife
06:20 and pluck it at just the right spot
06:22 so you don't destroy the crown or roots.
06:24 While much of the harvesting is done by hand,
06:26 Jürgen says the farm has automated
06:28 some of the processes over time
06:30 to increase production.
06:31 Today, instead of the asparagus basket,
06:51 there are harvesting aids.
06:53 The harvesting aids drive battery-powered
06:55 over-the-field.
06:57 The harvested asparagus is immediately brought inside
07:15 for cleaning and sorting.
07:17 And speed is crucial,
07:19 since white asparagus will begin to spoil
07:21 only about 10 days after harvesting.
07:24 Workers sort the asparagus by quality.
07:41 The most expensive Spargel is pure white,
07:45 perfectly straight and thick.
07:48 But some might have purple colour to them,
07:50 a thinner stalk or a curved shape,
07:53 which can decrease the price by several euros.
07:56 Any asparagus that doesn't make the cut
07:59 will return to the farm for use as compost.
08:01 The Spargel that passes the quality checks
08:03 can be sold locally for anywhere
08:05 from 6 to 10 euros per kilogram,
08:07 depending on the year.
08:09 It's also shipped abroad,
08:11 where export prices can exceed that range
08:13 due to the Spargel's short shelf life
08:15 and the speed required in shipping.
08:17 That's how it ends up in restaurant kitchens
08:20 around the world, like Elvin's.
08:22 Unlike green asparagus,
08:26 white asparagus must be peeled before it can be eaten,
08:29 since the long time spent underground
08:31 causes it to develop a tough, thick outer layer.
08:34 A case like this, it will take me 6 to 7 minutes.
08:38 There are 42 to 48 asparagus in there,
08:41 depends on size.
08:42 And then you just,
08:43 tack, tack, tack, tack, tack.
08:45 It just goes,
08:47 and the skin is flying off.
08:50 White asparagus is also typically boiled in its own stalk,
08:53 made from these peeled skins.
08:56 Two lemons is perfect for my pot here.
08:59 And I just put this into the water.
09:04 And we have some salt.
09:09 That's all we need here to get the water going.
09:13 The ends of stalks are also snapped off.
09:16 Beautiful.
09:17 Ah, that was a good one.
09:21 And then trimmed to a uniform length
09:23 before being placed in the stalk
09:25 and boiled for about 10 minutes.
09:27 And let them boil.
09:32 Now they're ready for plating.
09:35 Fine dining restaurants in Europe,
09:37 when I did this,
09:39 we had very crisp still.
09:42 If you do this at home,
09:45 and you eat it right away,
09:48 you might want to go another two minutes.
09:50 The most traditional dish,
09:58 and the most popular one at Cafe Katia,
10:00 is boiled asparagus smothered in Hollandaise sauce
10:04 and served with a side of potatoes.
10:06 Some parsley potatoes.
10:14 (upbeat music)
10:17 That's all I need.
10:20 There's nothing else I need for lunch or dinner.
10:24 I absolutely don't miss any proteins on this one.
10:29 There's definitely proteins in the egg,
10:32 in the Hollandaise, that's enough.
10:34 He also serves a version covered in lemon vinaigrette
10:37 with prosciutto and croutons.
10:40 While demand for white asparagus is as strong as ever,
10:43 both in Europe and at restaurants abroad like Cafe Katia,
10:47 the industry hasn't been immune
10:49 to recent international crises.
10:51 During the COVID-19 pandemic,
10:53 seasonal workers at asparagus farms
10:55 weren't allowed to cross the border into Germany,
10:58 inciting fear of a spargel shortage.
11:00 The German government was forced to pass an emergency bill
11:04 allowing them into the country.
11:05 And with Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022,
11:09 rising utility costs and inflation
11:11 led to European citizens spending less on items
11:14 like luxury vegetables.
11:16 People are buying asparagus again.
11:19 They say, "Okay, this whole discussion about cost increases
11:24 seems to have been forgotten.
11:28 Inflation is going down again.
11:30 Energy prices have dropped.
11:32 The cost-benefit ratio seems to be normalising.
11:36 And people are willing to spend money again.
11:39 That's very good for us in the asparagus and strawberries sector.
11:43 People are buying again, and we're very happy about that."
11:46 And at Cafe Katia, as the season draws to a close,
11:49 Erwin is already thinking about next year.
11:52 For me, cooking and preparing and peeling the asparagus,
11:57 actually I'm looking forward to it every year.
11:59 And it's a little bit of meditation.
12:01 The skin is flying off.
12:07 We fly them in from Europe.
12:10 They are not shipped because their shelf life is not that long.
12:15 The asparagus, I'm really taking pride of it
12:18 because my asparagus menu, so far,
12:21 I have not seen anywhere in the United States
12:24 who has such an extensive menu as we do.