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The Wild Asparagus Hunters are Out and About

It´s that time of year. Cars parked in odd places, the solitary person - usually a man, popping up above a bank or from behind an olive tree. The hunters of the wild aparagus are here. The plentiful rain scattered with a day or two of sunshine has brought them out in droves. Some have their route, others instinctively know where to go. They appear, walking back to their cars, with a huge bundle of foot long green spears of asparagus. And off they go, probably not to be seen for another year - or another week if the rain continues. No matter how hard the shoots try and hide the older men hunt them down with stick in hand, to fob off the spiky old growth, and uncover the tender new stems of wild asparagus. Everyone has their favourite way of cooking them but the most common seems to be in a Tortilla - the thick Spanish potato omelette to which you can add anything that comes to hand - or is hunted down. My one or two shorter stem finds don´t come close to the experienced hunters catch. I...
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It´s Fig Drying Time

Figs are wonderful, little pockets of nutrition and moisture on a hot day. Their season is long, if different varieties grow around you they can be picked from early June to late September.

We have a ´weed´ tree that we tried over years to get rid of and finally gave up. This year it has a great harvest of smallish figs, too small to bother opening and eating when you´ve been used to larger ones.

These small chaps I pick, wash cut into quarters and dry outside on trays well wrapped in clean old net curtains, specially saved for this purpose. This year I´ve decided to cut them into smaller pieces to save cutting them up when dry and hard.

Figs drying, Jaen


I´m hoping these´ll turn out as a large raisin that can be used as it is. When dry I pop them into a jar that´s been sterilised or even straight out of the dishwasher and, if not used, they keep for years.

I used to make fig rolls, not the biscuit in a packet but, a solid cylindrical sausage of minced figs, orange peel, aniseed and sometimes dark chocolate.

They were well liked and being English hubby used to put a slice between two biscuits. I´ve not done those for years, the son that liked them isn´t around much, the rest of us don´t like dried figs and hubby just doesn´t really do sweet things very often.

The ones in the photo are semi-dry, they´d been outside for 24 hours. At this time of year we´re getting 17-20ºc at night so I don´t bother bringing them in. Later when the nights cool down I usually bring them in or actually I put them in the car overnight. They need moving around and not leaving in the same space for too long or ants find them.

When I put these on the tray there was barely space between them and they were well packed on. When dry it seems like double the amount could have been done.

I´ve never yet dried tomatoes, mean to have a go every year, maybe this time. Grapes dry well, they´re just fiddly and sticky to halve and de-pip, I´m hoping for an attempt at juicing them this year.

Update - See my now tried Dried Tomatoes post.
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