STALKING THE WILD ASPARAGUS

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Spring beauty tubers are found two to three inches under the plant and look like little potatoes. They are from one-half to two inches in diameter, the larger ones tending to be of very irregular shape. This uneven surface usually presents a tough cleaning job, but we got around that by putting them in a covered wire basket, really an old corn popper, and setting them under a little waterfall in the trout stream. Then we could go fishing while our supper was being washed.

The simplest way to cook fairy spuds is to boil them 10 or 15 minutes, depending on size, in salted water. Drain off the water and, as soon as the tubers are cool enough to handle just peel off the skins and pop them into your mouth. My friend described the flavor and texture as "exactly like potatoes, only much better." To me, they have the sweetness and flavor of boiled chestnuts, although they are softer and smoother in texture.

We ate them every day, sometimes twice a day, for several weeks without growing tired of them. We tried them fried, mashed, in salads and cooked with peas, like new potatoes. All these ways were completely successful, but, as regular fare, we preferred them just boiled "in the jackets." My friend grew so fond of this food that he was afraid he would experience withdrawal symptoms when the supply was exhausted.

I am glad to have had this spring beauty orgy, but I hope this account doesn't cause any of the regular displays of this herald of spring to be destroyed. The spring beauty reproduces in two ways. Besides making seed, new little tubers bud off from the older ones. In many places, where this pretty spring flower is very abundant, the careful experimenter can collect fairy spuds without harming the future floral displays if he takes only the large tubers and replants the smaller ones.

Let's not let our greediness for this food destroy or diminish this attractive plant. The tubers are good food for the body, but, after a long winter, the pale-rose flowers in early spring are food for the soul. "Man does not live by bread alone."

WINTER CRESS: THE FIRST WITH THE MOST

(Barbarea vulgaris and Barbarea verna)

Where I live in suburban Philadelphia, the first sign of spring is not the returning wild geese winging high, nor the robins on the lawn. These harbingers are always preceded by the Italians, swarming out from town to gather Winter Cress from fields and ditches.

You would think that the suburbanites would catch on to the fact that they are missing out on a good thing and learn something from this annual event. But they never do. They pay exorbitant prices for tasteless greenhouse produce and week-old vegetables from Florida or California, and never realize that they have driven their station wagons past tons of much better vegetables on the way to the supermarket. They feel smugly superior to the rummaging people they passed along the way.

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