I bought a prepared salad at my local food store. Its main ingredients were asparagus, tomatos and cheese. It was pretty good and I decided to make some for myself. The problem is how to prepare the asparagus. In the store bought version the stalks parts were very crunchy. Almost as if they were raw. But my friend, who knows a lot more about cooking than I, says that asparagus needs to be cooked to neutralize some toxins and is not safe to eat raw.
I’m dubious but cautious. What’s the scoop? Also does anyone have any favorite asparagus recipes?
I’m partial to shaving it, like this recipe calls for, but you can eat it however you like; cooking isn’t necessary, though I would seek out the freshest, best-quality asparagus you can find if you intend to eat it raw.
I have an asparagus patch in my back yard, and it’s not unusual for me to break off a stalk and eat it raw. I’ve never gotten sick. Ask your friend what toxins he’s referring to.
(I did get cited by the ignorant city inspector for having “noxious weeds” growing in my yard. But that’s for a different thread.)
I ate plenty of raw asparagus out of the ground from my friend’s garden. Good stuff. That was the standard green asparagus. I think that white asparagus is different though. It’s still not toxic, of course, but you have to cook it for it to be edible.
Is there any vegetable that is toxic unless you cook it?
Yikes, I fed my veggie-loving kitty raw lima beans because he begged when we were shelling them. I only let him eat a few, although he would have gladly eaten them all. This was years ago, though, and he didn’t seem to have any ill effects.
Yeah, I can’t find any records of poisoning caused by lima beans. I wonder how much one would have to eat for it to be a problem (and it appears the cultivated types do not contain much of the compound in question). Cassava does seem to be a more serious issue, but, from what I can tell, there is also a soaking and pressing process that is used in addition to cooking to make it safely edible. Also, it seems there are a variety of cassavas, and this applies to the bitter kind.
That little bit of inappropriate pedanticism is very annoying. We’re obviously talking in a culinary context. Botanical definitions are unnecessary and irritating.
