Large or full grown asparagus is the best. Before you begin to prepare
it for cooking, set on the fire a pot with plenty of water, and
sprinkle into it a handful of salt. Your asparagus should be all of the
same size. Scrape the stalks till they are perfectly nice and white;
cut them all of equal length, and short, so as to leave them but two
or three inches below the green part. To serve up asparagus with long
stalks is now becoming obsolete. As you scrape them, throw them into a
pan of cold water. Then tie them up in small bundles with bass or tape,
as twine will cut them to pieces. When the water is boiling fast, put
in the asparagus, and boil it an hour; if old it will require an hour
and a quarter. When it is nearly done boiling, toast a large slice of
bread sufficient to cover the dish (first cutting off the crust) and
dip it into the asparagus water in the pot. Lay it in a dish, and,
having drained the asparagus, place it on the toast with all the heads
pointed inwards towards the centre, and the stalks spreading outwards.
Serve up melted butter with it.
SEA KALE.--Sea kale is prepared, boiled, and served up in the same
manner as asparagus.
POKE.--The young stalks and leaves of the poke-berry plant when quite
small and first beginning to sprout up from the ground in the spring,
are by most persons considered very nice, and are frequently brought to
market. If the least too old they acquire a strong taste, and should
not be eaten, as they then become unwholesome. They are in a proper
state when the part of the stalk nearest to the ground is not thicker
than small asparagus. Scrape the stalks, (letting the leaves remain on
them,) and throw them into cold water. Then tie up the poke in bundles,
put it into a pot that has plenty of boiling water, and let it boil
fast an hour at least. Serve it up with or without toast, and send
melted butter with it in a boat.