Wild asparagus is one of the most delicious of the survivalist foods that you could hope to ever find. It is wonderful to eat lightly grilled over a wild fire. In fact, survivalist Euell Gibbons once wrote an entire book about this activity called “Stalking The Wild Asparagus” which was all about feeding his family by foraging edibles in the 1930s.
They first start appearing in the spring but can be quite hard to find because they are small plants. They can start appearing as early as the first week of April. The thick wild asparagus stocks grow all summer. By the fall they are quite easy to spot because the delicious thick stocks start turning orange. This makes them stand out quite starkly from the look of other vegetables.
Usually they grow in clumps however if the asparagus is tall enough to see from far away this also usually means that it is too tough to eat. What you want to find is the younger, tender shoots that grow at the base of the older clumps.
You can find it growing across the United States but especially in the central and Southern states where it flourishes by the roadside. In fact all summer long you can see people picking wild asparagus by the highways. One thing you need to be very careful of is contamination with pesticides especially if the asparagus is located in a space near the highway that seems a bit more manicured.
Generally wild asparagus has much thinner stalks than the domesticated kind but you can luck out and find patches boasting very thick stalks. Wild asparagus is also a bit more sinewy and woody than the cultivated kind. When it is very mature it boasts tiny feathery fronds that look a bit like angel ferns.
If you are in a survivalist situation and you have found a patch of asparagus it is very important not to overpick the cluster because it will not grow back. If the stalks growing back seem to be a lot thinner than what you were picking earlier on in the season then it is time to scale back a bit or you could lose it as a source of food altogether.
Asparagus is very versatile and you can steam it and broil it out in the wild. A good survival dish to make in the wild is some beef jerky or dried sausage, tomato sauce or chopped tomatoes and wild asparagus cooked up together.