Espárrago blanco

Fat and acid, the two things that shut down the buried bitterness.

Poached in it, the spear turns from bitter to sweet-nutty.

Waxy starch and a peeled spear, both boiled, both plain on purpose.

Salt cuts bitterness at the receptor. Two slices do the work of sugar.

Chopped hard-boiled and butter poured over. Fat plus sulfur, twice.

In the cooking water it keeps the spear white and the bitter shorter.

A pinch in the pot. Not sweetening, just muting what peeling missed.

Browned crumbs in butter give a peeled spear the texture it lost.

Same six weeks, and the mushroom earth answers the buried bitterness.

Off-dry white takes the bitterness the way sugar takes coffee.

The blanched spear has no chlorophyll; chervil lends it the green back.

Two soft, faintly bitter things. Cook them the same minute.

Both faintly bitter, both in season the same six weeks.

Two things grown underground, both sulfur, neither wanting sunlight.

Maltaise sauce exists for this bitterness and nothing else.

Both faintly iodine and cream. Poach them in the same butter.

Sulfur compounds usually wreck wine; low-oak whites are the survivors.

Sulfur spear meets thiol flower. Same funk from two sides, and neither backs down.