Casting Asparagus

Mamma’s tiny patch of asparagus never flourished. Mamma grew beautiful and delicious okra, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, corn, even rhubarb. But the asparagus was an unrealized dream. It was always going to do better the next year. It didn’t die; it just never did well. Maybe its poor progress year after year had something to do with my misunderstanding one of Mamma’s teaching points.

Last night I gleefully prepared some asparagus for baking, coating crisp spears with olive oil and rolling them in salt and pepper. I was reminded of Mamma’s tiny struggling asparagus in its own protected corner, specially tended with rich fertilizer, yet forever disappointing. At the same time I remembered her asparagus patch I remembered also Mamma’s repeated instructions not to “cast asparagus” on anyone. I couldn’t help smiling.

I got the lesson she was teaching: casting asparagus meant saying something unkind or critical about another. It was years, though, before I realized it was aspersions, not asparagus, we were not to cast.

I remember wondering what casting asparagus would look like. Would one person throw asparagus spears at another whose arms were over their face trying to avert the green missiles? Or maybe one person would be trying to feed tough asparagus to another. It was actually quite puzzling because Mamma treasured that asparagus, flourishing or not. She would never throw it away.

It is funny, and sometimes alarming, how children misunderstand our language. If they would ask questions to receive a clear explanation they could avoid the confusion. But often, as I did, they accept what they think is being said and no one realizes there was a breakdown in communication.

But I did understand Mamma’s meaning. I knew “casting asparagus” meant undue criticism. She said the same thing in other phrases: “If you can’t say something nice, then keep quiet” or “Comparisons are odious.” On the positive side she might quote a Bible verse like Proverbs 25:11: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”

As I prepared asparagus for dinner, I remembered to be thankful for Mamma’s teaching. Whether asparagus or aspersions, don’t cast them on anyone!