Asparagus.

One time I cooked asparagus for my husband and I to eat with baked chicken, and although I ate my portion without incident, he questioned me as to why his serving had grains of sand in every bite. I was skeptical, but in fact, when I took a couple of his asparagus stalks to eat for myself, I found he wasn’t exaggerating: there were bits of the vegetable which produced a marked sandgrain crunch. I shrugged.

"I’m not sure, it is gritty. Mine was fine."

"I like asparagus, but I won’t trust it for awhile. How did sand get into it?"

"Maybe it absorbed into the stalks from the soil somehow. I don’t know how asparagus works."

"Well maybe you should figure that out before you give it to me!"

We laughed. And I forgot about it for a few days. And then I realized I knew nothing about the asparagus plant or how it grows. So I did some reading. And I learned that gritty asparagus is not unusual, but rather common, and especially likely with locally-grown or organically-cultivated plants. The less sticky stems of non-commercialized asparagus stalks make it easier for sand and soil to cling to the vegetable. These grains of grit can hide in the small leaves on the surface of the asparagus stalk and outlast multiple washings. So below I’ve included a few tips on how to ensure your asparagus is grit free, prior to cooking and enjoying. Only one method is necessary, so try them out, and see what works best.

Blanching: boil a pot of water. Dip the asparagus spears into the water until the lesser leaves are wilted. Rinse the spears in cold water. Be sure to lift the asparagus out of the water so the grit is left behind.

Shaving: use a handheld vegetable peeler to remove the thin, outer layer and lesser leaves of the stalk.

Soaking: just like it sounds, this method is as simple as leaving your asparagus spears in a bowl of warm (but not hot) water for 10-15 minutes and then transferring it to your cooking apparatus.