Alsace but no sauce – An Irishman’s Diary about the Asparagus Festival of Hoerdt

I was writing on Thursday about the European Parliament’s “gravy train”, existence of which is still debated. But one place it definitely doesn’t go any more, as confirmed by my latest trip to Strasbourg, is the local asparagus festival.

It did the last time I visited the EP, 20 years ago, and it was easily the highlight of the trip. Back then, every May, the entire parliament used to decamp for a night (by bus, actually, not train) to the Alsace border town of Hoerdt, there to celebrate the opening of white asparagus season.

That plant was indeed the centrepiece of festivities. And very good it was too – sweeter and more tender than the green variety.

But crucially, the food was accompanied by a bottomless supply of Vin d’Alsace, which explained a level of carousal not normally associated with vegetables.

Produced by covering the shoots with soil, to prevent photosynthesis, white asparagus is a mainly Germanic passion. Even so, I think it was the same versions of the plant that sent Marcel Proust off on one of his lyrical tangents, when he saw a maid prepare them: " . . . tinged with ultramarine and rosy pink which ran from their heads, finely stippled in mauve and azure, through a series of imperceptible changes to their white feet, still stained by a little of the soil of their garden-bed: a rainbow-loveliness that was not of this world. I felt that these celestial hues indicated the presence of exquisite creatures who had been pleased to assume vegetable form, who, through the disguise which covered their firm and edible flesh, allowed me to discern in this radiance of earliest dawn, these hinted rainbows, these blue evening shades, that precious quality which I should recognise again when, all night long after a dinner at which I had partaken of them, they played (lyrical and coarse in their jesting as the fairies in Shakespeare's Dream) at transforming my humble chamberpot into a bower of aromatic perfume."

Phew. In that last detail, Proust touches upon a well-known byproduct of the vegetable, although he seems to be in a minority who regard the effect on urine as pleasant. As to another of its supposed influences, as aphrodisiac, the jury is still divided. But Madame de Pompadour, chief mistress to Louis XV, may have been among the believers. She considered their points d'amour ("love tips") a delicacy.

Getting back to Hoerdt, the EP’s outing used to be hosted by the city of Strasbourg as part of its charm offensive against bilocation sceptics. But it stopped after the crash of 2008 and hasn’t returned. Budgetary considerations aside, it might have disappeared anyway.

A retired Irish veteran of many asparagus festivals lamented to me that, as the parliament has grown ever bigger and more powerful, it has also become less sociable. The number of formal meetings has multiplied, but collegiality has been replaced by the “silo effect”. People don’t even fraternise en route to Strasbourg, as they used to, since there are so many different ways to get there now.

Not that Hoerdt seems to have suffered. This year’s celebrations got under way in sunshine last week, with the festival queen (“Miss Asperges”) leading the parade. All the restaurants were booked out, as usual. But I learned this from a rueful distance, via the local newspaper. I was on a lonely train back to Paris at the time, with no asparagus, never mind gravy, in sight.

Choral music

Speaking of trains, as I will again in a moment, lovers of choral music who find themselves in Dublin this evening might consider a visit to St Ann’s Church, Dawson Street, at 6pm. That’s the setting for an 80th birthday concert in honour of Colin Mawby, the much-respected English conductor and composer, whose life’s work includes founding the RTÉ Philharmonic Choir, which he directed for many years.

An example of his talent was provided to passengers on a train in Italy once, in 1963.

He was accompanying the boys choir of Westminster Cathedral to a performance in Loreto, when he realised their programme was a piece short. So he wrote one on the spot, and then rehearsed it, while the delighted Italian passengers shouted “bravo” and “encore”.

During the same visit, they sang for Pope John XXIII on his last public audience.

The train composition, Haec Dies, will be among those performed in St Ann's. Lyric FM will record the event for future broadcast.

And Mawby aside, there is a good cause, with proceeds to Inner City Helping Homeless.