It happens every year. Asparagus appears at the farmer’s market and supermarket and I overbuy. My family loves asparagus, which was introduced to Vietnam by the French. Because asparagus spears shoot out from the soil like bamboo, Viet people called the vegetable măng tây (French bamboo). The disyllabic word is much easier to pronounce than ‘asparagus’.

Because asparagus requires particular conditions to thrive, it wasn’t widely grown in Vietnam. My mom didn’t see fresh asparagus in Saigon until the years close to when we fled in 1975. It was grown in Da Lat along with other Western crops like artichokes, she said. She recalls fat white asparagus that were delicious. For most people, if they could afford asparagus in Vietnam, it came from a can imported from far away.

Asparagus was a foreign ingredient for much of the 20th century. Given that, Viet asparagus recipes in the 1940s leaned mostly toward French-inspired dishes. One asparagus salad recipe called for reheating an unopened can of asparagus (to preserve its shape and texture, I suppose) and then tossing the spears with a simple vinaigrette. That doesn’t sound tasty.

An elegant delicate icon

The better tasting asparagus dish that became a fixture in the Vietnamese repertoire was súp măng tây cua — an elegant soup loaded with asparagus and crab. It was and still is considered special-occasion fare because asparagus is a luxe, pricey ingredient.

People traditionally prepared the soup with canned asparagus. Resourceful cooks maximized the asparagus flavor by adding both the spears and their canning liquid to the soup. I know it sounds gross but it tasted good to us.

After we fled Vietnam and resettled in America in the 1975 where there’s fresh asparagus, my mom still made the soup with canned asparagus. She also used canned crab for convenience. We had it as our go-to soup for fancy parties but after indulging in fresh asparagus, I found the canned asparagus soup to be monochromatic in flavor. Over time, my mom just stopped making the soup.

Fresh asparagus is the better way to go for the soup and I’ve turned to making it with fresh spears for years. I’ve also converted my mother.

I thought my approach went against Vietnamese conventions but noticed that Vietnam has recently been growing asparagus to export to Taiwan, China, Japan and South Korea. Cultivating asparagus, a pricey vegetable, is building economic opportunities for impoverished parts of Vietnam. It’s been dubbed as the “king of vegetables” and “green gold”.

Exports are one thing but more cooks in Vietnam are experimenting with fresh asparagus recipes. Asparagus is healthful, which Viet people (like everyone else) dig. It’s low-cal, high-fiber, and antioxidant rich. Its high folate content is good for fighting cancer. I just eat the spears for flavor but heck, I’ll take the health boost too.

All of that cheered me to no end. It’s one thing for me as a recipe developer to adapt and evolve ingredients for my expatriate situation, but knowing that people in Vietnam are using similar ingredients means that my ideas jive with what’s going on in the motherland.

This past week, I experimented with my favorite asparagus soup recipe to make it super weeknight friendly. I had a lot of asparagus on hand and ended up devising two super flavorful recipes that you can take in many directions. You’ll be well covered by the contents of this dispatch, which includes:

• 2 flexible asparagus recipes to please omnivores, pescatarians, vegetarians, or vegans

• A how-to video to walk you through the trickiest part of the recipe

• No-waste cooking tips because asparagus and seafood are expensive

• Explainer on how this umami-laden soup’s flavor comes together (so you can apply those ideas elsewhere)

• Advance prep pointers that enable you to easily slide this recipe into your rotation

If you love the springtime vegetable as much as I do, now is our moment to fully enjoy their unique flavor, texture, and healthful benefits.

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