haven’t always enjoyed asparagus. Again it comes down to the influences of youth. I seem to recall trying asparagus at a pub counter lunch years ago. It was mushy, yellowing at the tip and tasted aggressive. But not as aggressive as it smelt, afterwards, you know, afterwards. It was an altogether unpleasant experience, and not assisted by the fact that every time I saw asparagus in the shops it was at a top-shelf price. I decided to give it a miss until a few years ago when it was served perfectly cooked at a dinner party. You have to eat whatever is put before you at such shows, don’t you? I ate, enjoyed, commented, and took to the little darlings with a vigour.

That afterwards effect has not changed, but now, thanks to the brilliant book, On Food and Cooking, by Harold McGee, I know the reason why. According to McGee, they have been worrying about it since before Australia was a light in Arthur Phillip’s eye. In 1702 a Frenchman, Dr Louis Lemery, had some things to say about the vegetables in his Treatise on all sorts of foods. Wrote the doc: ‘Sparagrass eaten to excess sharpen the humours and heat a little; and therefore persons of a bilious constitution ought to use them moderately: They cause a filthy and disagreeable smell in the urine as everybody knows.’

Thanks, doc. The culprit, according to McGee, is methyl mercaptan.

So the next time the subject comes up at a toffy dinner party, you can curl your upper lip, as Biggies used to do, and answer loftily: ‘Oh really, old thing, don’t you know methyl mercaptan when you smell it?’

Whoever invented asparagus cookers was a profiteer and, I suppose, a successful one, judging by the fact that they still are produced and they still sell. Who needs one? Forget all thoughts of cookers. All you need is a little salt, a little water and a pot.

If you’ve seen a very pale version of asparagus in a few shops about town, don’t turn white with horror. This is one of those delicacies which Europeans have grown to love and expect with the seasons, and now it’s available in Australia. A few growers are devoting time and energy to growing the white version.

There is, I should point out, nothing different about the species. It is just that the asparagus is not allowed to see the sun. As the spear grows, it is mounded with earth, and thus it misses out on the greenness that comes from exposure to the sun. The flavour that develops in the spears is more intense, more of the real asparagus flavour. Even then, it is rather subtle, and inclined a little to the walnut. I found a batch very juicy, very tender, and served it simply in some melted butter, a handful of torn basil leaves, some lemon juice and plenty of black pepper.

There is one very happy consequence of the white asparagus. It does not leave a signature tune in your urine. The unhappy side is the price. Because of labour it works out at rather more than $20 a kilo, even in season.