WordPress Daily Prompt: Time After Time

Traditions: we’ve all got ‘em. They might be family dinners on special occasions, or having a particular kind of cake on your birthday (Jeanne Cake, natch), or popcorn at the movies, or meeting your friend for a 5k run in the park, rain or shine, every Sunday morning. What are your favorite traditions, large and small? What is it about your traditions that keep them going strong for you? 

Photographers, artists, poets: show us RITUAL.

Look, one of the local traditions are now again appearing in the food departments of the shops. It seems to me that our traditions arrive earlier and earlier each year. When I moved to this country in the middle of Europe known as Switzerland I met a lot of new and unknown traditions. One was that April and May are the asparagus times of the year. Mr. Swiss inaugurated me into this event and so Mrs. Angloswiss learned how to cook this curious vegetable. I did know it from England, only the tinned variety. Now you can even buy it in England, but perhaps just 5-6 at a time for a horrendous price. The first arrival of asparagus  in our local supermarket was last week.

“Look” I said to Mr. Swiss “you can get asparagus again.”

“Already” was the answer

“What about an asparagus risotto this week for lunch” I asked.

“Yes, definitely” and so Mr. and Mrs. (Anglo)Swiss bought a kilo of asparagus. Yes, we buy it kilo wise in this country of Helvetians. The asparagus that arrived on our table in the form of an asparagus risotto originated in Mexico. “That is a long way from Switzerland” you are thinking, but that is today’s modern life. Our traditions are disappearing at the cost of cold storage, long distance flights, and globalisation. Who cares? I even saw strawberries in the store, nice and red, probably not so juicy and I did not even bother to discover where they had their origins. Switzerland grows enough strawberries when it is the season (around May and June?).

Being originally a Brit I suppose I was saturated in traditions. The Queen and her trooping of the colour, hot cross buns at Easter, The Grand National (an annual horse race over hurdles), the football cup final and probably a few others. Mum was very much into traditions because that was how we did it and so well all had to do it that way. A world fell apart for her if things did not go how she wanted them.

I did not miss the Queen when I arrived in Switzerland and I am sure she did not miss me. I did not miss my Christmas turkey. It was not such a Swiss thing and Christmas in Switzerland is upside down compared to the British way of life. Mum and dad visited us at Christmas in Switzerland, but I do not think Mum was happy. It was tradition to have real burning wax candles on the Christmas Tree in the evenings in Switzerland, so I was confronted with English mum saying “isn’t it dangerous”, “aren’t you frightened that the tree will go up in flames” and so I reassured her that we had a bucket of water ready in the bathroom. The idea of celebrating on Christmas Eve was also not her thing. She would have preferred the Christmas Day lunch with the turkey and all the trimmings, and where are the Christmas Crackers. I explained that Christmas Crackers were an English thing.

I do not do traditions as such, I like variety in my life. Being a golden oldie can be boring if you sit around and wait for the next tradition to appear on the horizon. Of course, we have our little habits in Swiss family Anglo. Today I broke with a tradition and am writing my daily prompt outside on the porch. The sun was shining and Spring signals were everywhere. Unfortunately the sun has now disappeared and there is a sharp wind blowing so it is now bloody cold to say it frankly.

I will now retire to the inside and practice my Tai Chi exercises to warm up the body and soul. Now my mum did not even know what Tai Chi was, so that is a break with tradition.

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Cooking - Asparagus

Today I cooked asparagus. Asparagus is a strange vegetable and I know it cannot be bought everywhere. It grows in Switzerland in certain areas near a place called Kerzers. The best asparagus apparently comes from Alsace in France, although today you get it imported from all over the place. The season starts late March and goes through to about May. I notice the season starts earlier every year. The price seems to depend on the weather allowing more or less to be harvested. As you can see from the pictures it is a strange plant. It makes nice leaves, and indeed you can buy asparagus as an indoor plant, but the actual life takes place underground in the earth. I am no expert, but the asparagus sticks grow upright in the piled up earth. If you are a gourmet, and really want to do things properly, then you would only eat asparagus that has been pulled out of the earth on the same day as you eat it. I am not a gourmet (in my family we eat to live and not the opposite) so I buy it in the local supermarket. They were selling it for 11.50 Swiss francs for a bunch weighing one kilo, so I bought 2 kilo for 3 people. If one more was at the table I would have bought 3 kilo. When I paid for it at the till the lady said that looks like nice asparagus, I wonder where it comes from. My curiosity was awakened and we found to be from Peru. Now how fast and well it arrived in the Swiss supermarket from Peru I don't know, but I didn't ask questions. So here is today's evening meal.

First of all the ingredients. On the right the asparagus and on the left the meat we eat with it. Ham and a special dried ham from the Grisons part of Switzerland. I am doing things the local way, but I am sure each country would have its own meat to suit. I have butter and a lemon ready and the packet with Sauce Hollandaise written on it is the sauce to eat with the asparagus. There again a gourmet would be shocked to see that I make my sauce hollandaise from a ready mixture. I have made my own, but I never really saw the point. I had a husband and two hungry growing boys to feed - they ate quicker than I could cook and it was just not worth it. Making a sauce hollandaise takes time and patience.

The next step is to cut the ends off the asparagus. The ends are supposed to be important. From these you can see if the asparagus is fresh. If they are dried out that is not supposed to be so good, and the ends are a bit tough to leave on.

The next part is to peel the asparagus. I usually do it with a potato peeler starting from just under the heads (never peel the heads, that is the best part) to the bottom. I then put the peeled asparagus into some water in case there is any grit left on them from the earth. A super housewife would save the peelings to make an asparagus soup.

In the meanwhile I have put a large pan half filled with water on to boil. When the water boils I squeeze half a lemon into it, add about half a teaspoon of salt and butter. The lemon juice makes sure that the asparagus stays a light colour. I am not sure about the butter, but butter is always good.

I would say that 30 minutes is long enough to cook the asparagus. A test is to prod it with a knife at the bottom part of the asparagus. If it goes through easily then it is cooked.

When the asparagus is cooked then drain off the water. As asparagus keeps a lot of the water I find it advisable to put it on the turned off cooking range to help to reduce the remaining water in the asparagus. Just to let it evaporate a bit.

I now make the sauce hollandaise according to instructions on the packet. I buy mine in the local supermarket. According to my youngest son it's the best one. Although he doesn't live at home any more, his presence is felt. I put 250 deciliter milk in a pan and empty the powder from the packet into it. Then stir with a whisk over the heat until it boils. When it starts to boil and gets quite think I melt 50 grammes of butter in it whisking all the time and that's all there is to it.

And there we have our evening meal ready to be eaten. Asparagus is something a bit different, but in Switzerland it is eaten a lot when in season. It was quite a custom at home to have it for Saturday evening meal, but by the time May came along I think we had all had enough. As I have said before, I am not an expert cook, just enjoy cooking and I don't believe so much in recipes but trying things out according to your own tastes. So, as we say in Switzerland - en gute.

Deutsch: Ich habe bewusst keine deutsche Übersetzung gemacht. Ich bin sicher, dass ich muss keine deutscher sagen oder zeigen wie man Spargel macht, und ich bin auch sicher das jeder hat seine Rezept was meine in Schatten lasst. Für irgenwelche Verbesserungsvorshlage bin ich auch dankbar.