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Skipping Through the Hadley Grass

by Rebecca Flint Marx, Posted Apr 30th 2009 @ 3:00PM

Few things drive foodies to heights of hyberbolic ecstasy like asparagus. Its appearance each spring is greeted with a fervor that lends the farmers' market more than a passing similarity to a house of worship. It's such a widely and wildly celebrated vegetable that its name is shorthand for all that is good and hopeful and tasty about the new season.

But far fewer people recognize asparagus by its other name, Hadley grass. The relatively obscure moniker recalls the time, from the 1930s to the 1970s, when the area around Hadley, Mass., was known as one of the country's most bountiful asparagus regions thanks to its incredibly fertile, loamy soil. That era came to an end in the mid-'70s when a soil-borne fungus all but wiped out the crop and spurred farmers to plant other veggies. While there are still asparagus growers in and around Hadley, the town's name is no longer synonymous with the tender stalks that were once its grassy glory.

If calling asparagus "Hadley grass" seems slightly archaic, like calling the radio the wireless or a hearing aid an ear trumpet, then consider that it's an updated version of asparagus' even more old-fashioned nickname, "sparrow grass," which was an 18th-century corruption of the name. Whatever you want to call it, most everyone would agree that its most relevant names at this time of year are "breakfast," "lunch" and "dinner."

Filed Under: Ingredients
Tags: america, asparagus, farmers market, FarmersMarket, hadley grass, HadleyGrass, spring, vegetables