Photo: Box of Apples.com.

Asparagus season is drawing to a close, depending where you live. If you’ve reached your limit of fresh asparagus, and can’t possibly make any more asparagus soup, try Hannah Glasse’s recipe for pickled asparagus.

From The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (first published in 1747):

Take the largest asparagus you can get, cut off the white ends, and wash the green ends in spring water, then put them in another clean water, and let them lie two or three hours in it; then have a large broad stew pan full of spring water with a good large handful of salt; set it on the fire, and when it boils put in the asparagus, not tied up but loose, and not too many at a time, for fear you break the heads. – Just scald them, and no more, take them out with a broad skimmer and lay them on a cloth to cool. – Then for your pickle take a gallon, or more according to your quantity of asparagus, of white wine vinegar, and one ounce of bay-salt, boil it, and put your asparagus in your jar; to a gallon of pickle, two nutmegs, a quarter of an ounce of mace, the same of whole white pepper, and pour the pickle hot over them. Cover them with a linen cloth, three or four times double, let them stand a week longer, boil the pickle again, and pour it on hot as before. When they are cold, cover them close with a bladder and leather.

Photo: antiquemajolica.ecrater.com