The asparagus used to be eaten by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. Its depictions are present on the Egyptian sarcophaguses from 5000 years ago. The Greeks probably used to gather only wildly growing asparagus, while Romans gave quite detailed guidelines how to cook it around the year 200 B.C., but they still used to use the seeds of wild plants. A little surprisingly, they used to dry the asparagus in order to make it possible to cook it quickly during the winter time simply by boiling them in a water. It certainly is the proof of a great adoration towards this vegetable, which made the Romans turn it from a strongly seasonal product into a parennial one.
Back in the Medieval Age the asparagus used to be a highly seeked medical plant for the purposes of curing podagra, but it was the French King-Sun - Louis the 14th, who rediscovered the asparagus for the modern cuisine.
During the 17th century the Pfalz elector, Karl Theodor, ordered to cultivate this "royal vegetable" in today's palace gardens of his summer mansion. Therefrom, during the 18th century, the asparagus gradually found its place also in manors' kitchens situated in neighbouring principalities. For a long time the pleasure of eating the asparagus had been reserved only for the "higly born" clergy and nobility. Only in the contemporary times the asparagus was found a healthy vegetable being the natural antidote for stress.
