Spargelzeit

OK, so I know that most fruits and vegetables worldwide have seasons.  In our house we always talk about how around Benjamin's birthday (April 23rd) is when we can start even thinking about buying berries that taste like actual berries.  And tomatoes... I get it things have a season when they are better, cheaper and more abundant.
I have NEVER ever seen anything like Spargelzeit.  It translates to "asparagus time" and the Germans, or maybe all over Europe, goes nuts for asparagus apparently.  In every grocery store there is a designated section for spargel.  Some stores even have a table set up with huge bins FILLED with spargel and an attendant to bag up your spargel. 

It is mostly white, thick variety not the typical skinny green that we are used to.  This white variety which is much MUCH more common here is grown
 underground so that no sunlight touches it and photosynthesis does not take place.
We like asparagus.  Well, Josie, Marty and I do.  I've roasted the green variety many times here (in and out of spargelzeit) and it was always very good.  I have to say that during spargelzeit it was honestly no better and no cheaper than during other times of the year.  Maybe my palate just isn't sophisticated enough to know the difference. 

I made the white variety also. It had the same flavor just a bit stringier and tough. 

I looked up how to make it and get this, the Germans even have their own special "spargel pots" tall and thin so that you stand the asparagus up with the more fragile tips up and out of the water.  I already knew they had special "spargelschalers" asparagus peelers.  When we used to come in the summer we would often bring them

back as gifts.  And now that we know there is a season for asparagus the reaction we would always receive from a worker in a store makes so much more sense. 

We would go into a kitchen type store and ask for a spargelschaler.  The worker would look at us bewildered and say "it is not spargelzeit!"  I guess it would be the equivalent of looking for a bathing suit in December in Seattle.  But how were we to know.
In addition to the stores selling it, there are pop up stands on every 4th street corner and in EVERY single restaurant they have their daily menu/specials and the entire thing is SPARGELZEIT.  This popped up in early April and since I am behind in my writing I can tell you that just recently (early June) sparelzeit is starting to fade.

In some (few) of those pop ups and special sections in the stores and restaurants, spargel is being replaced by Erdbeeren (strawberries) but I can tell you there is much less gusto with the enthusiasm over the strawberry compared to the insane way people here take to the asparagus.