What does spring mean in your part of the world? In Tuscany it’s the first tender shoots of wild asparagus spotted in some woodlot, or the quiet chuckle of hens in the farmyard as they start once more to provide their eggs. It’s the sight of flocks of sheep cruising the green hills and lowlands in search of fresh grass. Above all, it’s great mounds of fava beans and peas piled in our markets, so tender, so compelling that easily half of them get consumed, raw from the shell, on the drive home. In Maine it means wild fiddleheads and dandelion greens, while in New York it’s a mad Greenmarket explosion of everything from new greens, bright with flavor, to wild ramps, that peculiar cross between a leek and an onion, that are so much in demand.
Spring comes very early to some parts of the Mediterranean. By February the almond trees are already in blossom in Sicily and Andalusia, their flowers like pink-white cotton puffs along the gray branches; later in March, it’s time for mimosa, drooping clusters of bright yellow flowers that carpet hillsides in Liguria and Provence and shine like neon in the soft spring rain. And on the slopes of Mount Lebanon wild anemones, windflowers, carpet the forest floor.
It’s a time too when country gardens and city markets fill with new green vegetables called primeurs in France, primizie in Italy, proima in Greece: fava beans so young and tender they need no shucking but are eaten whole straight from the pod; slender shoots of wild asparagus and constellations of wild chicory, gathered by the roadside and in abandoned fields; early peas, spring artichokes, the first green shoots of garlic and onions. Young tender greens, wild or cultivated, are suddenly abundant, and after the heavy days of winter it seems right to eat green, both because your taste buds crave it and because it’s what you find all over in vegetable shops, market stalls, and backyard gardens. If you follow the seasons as we do, it will have been a year since you last ate asparagus. By June we’ve grown weary of the woodsy flavor of the green shoots, but come the following April, when we see them again, we cannot wait to cook with them, day in and day out, blanched until tender and dribbled with olive oil, or long braised to falling-apart sweetness and tossed with pasta, butter, and lots of grated cheese. In Rome the first tiny sweet peas and fava beans of spring are prized, each one served alone or in combination, sweated out lightly with chopped spring onion and salty cured pork, pancetta, or guanciale—delicious as a side dish but even better tossed with tiny shells or cavatelli.
Right around the world spring is also lamb season and lamb never seems tastier than when paired with fresh young peas or fava beans. Great flocks of snowy sheep forage the rolling green of the Crete Senesi near our home farm. Sad to say, it’s also time to cull the flocks of their young, but it provides lush lamb and kid for Easter markets. Upside down, their naked carcasses hang from hooks in the butcher shops lining via Dardano in Cortona. And along with tender meat comes a fresh supply of milk for all the wonderfully savory pecorino cheeses, fresh and aged, plus ricotta, all of which find roles to play in pasta sauces and garnishes.
As the days grow longer and the light softens, spring pastas mirror the balmy air, engendering an instinctive desire for more fresh vegetables. Banned from our tables are the deep rich braises and sumptuously meaty ragùs of colder seasons, replaced by tender young vegetables, just barely cooked, paired with newly sprouted chives and tarragon, mint and thyme, perhaps blended with fresh ricotta. Whole sweet snap peas are slivered and tossed with butter and prosciutto to complement little shells of pasta, or pureed to fill ravioli for a simple dish topped elegantly with fresh cream and mint. Plain spinach is barely steamed and mixed with ricotta. Wild stinging nettles, carefully harvested, are transformed into green lasagna or a simple sauce for handmade tagliatelle. Or in a spectacular spring dish called la vignarola in Rome and la frittella in Sicily, a myriad of sweet young vegetables are combined and tossed with pasta, a version of pasta alla primavera that simply sings of the delights of this awakening season.