I was wondering about the pee thing - whether it's to do with someone's ability to smell, or to do with a chemical reaction with the urine. I have no idea - but occasionally get very worried when having asparagus and beetroot during the same meal!
Yes to the pee smell! Within a couple of hours for me.
Had a beetroot pee fright once because I'd eaten a large portion of roast beetroot but had forgotten about it. Fortunately I remembered just as I was about to make a doc appointment!
Love it with home made vinaigrette. Pee smell happens within minutes although some people don't get it at all - DD3 doesn't know what I'm talking about. Think it must be chemical reaction
MrBags has just read me the results of several studies about asparagus pee. In short, some people can't detect the smell of asparagus pee even though they produce it. Seems an olfactory gene associated with its detection had been isolated in one at least of the studies – "a single nucleotide polymorphism in a cluster of olfactory genes". Only about 22% of people can smell it.
Mamie - Asparagus risotto - sounds delicious. Mr. B. does a great fennel risotto (he's more patient than me) - but think I'll point him towards your OH's recipe.
We try to only eat it when it is in season and we can buy it at our local farm shop and eat it the day it is harvested. This time of year we are on tenterhooks waiting for the first of the crop to arrive, I think it is called delayed gratification and it adds to our enjoyment.
Thank you Bags and to Mr Bags. So, if I can't smell my pee it may or may not be smelly. I could ask a friend to check, but I think I will just sail through life believing, perhaps erroneously, that my post asparagus wee is simply lovelier than that of others.
Eating Asparagus the day it's picked is certainly good. We have a farm not far from here who have just started cutting. I bought some today - very reasonable price Euros 4 for 1 kg. Can't beat eating it in season Flickety