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Asparagus and the Art of Good Living- Edward Heron-Allen

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“They Travelled 100 Miles to Eat Asparagus”

The Nottingham Journal, 23 May 1938

In May of 1938, the Wine and Food Society caused quite a stir: members marked the start of the British asparagus season by celebrating in style. As The Nottingham Journal reports, they travelled to the Vale of Evesham, where most of the English asparagus was grown. Many members took a train from London and reached the Lygon Arms, Broadway, on the 22^{nd of May, in time to eat a luncheon of asparagus cut the same morning from the Vale.}

This press report, carefully preserved by A.J.A. Symons in his volumes of Wine and Food Society Memorabilia, describes the event in vivid terms:

The meal was followed by AndrÈ Simon, President of the Society, providing asparagus “tips” of an oratorical kind. One tip was: “Do not, as so many English cooks are tempted to do, boil and boil it until it is soft at the end and the tips resemble wet blotting paper. Follow the Roman practice and consider it cooked when the tips are soft.”

By May 1938, asparagus was a subject familiar to the members of the Wine and Food Society. Four years before this outpouring of interest, a man named Edward Heron-Allen had laid the groundwork for such appreciation. While he had publications addressing asparagus culture which appeared in such places as The Southern Post, The Chichester Post, and a pamphlet called Asparagus as a Hobby for Amateurs and Epicures, it was his article, “Asparagus: Its History, Cultivation and Cookery”, published in the Summer 1934 issue of the Society’s Journal Wine and Food, which gained Heron-Allen his widest and most appreciative audience.

What the members of the Wine and Food Society experienced at the Vale was precisely what Heron-Allen prescribed and envisioned for the future: the finest asparagus, eaten at its freshest. In other words, here were people with a zest for life.

Edward Heron-Allen, F.R.S. (1861-1943) was a man of means who practised as a solicitor in Soho, London, until he retired from the law on his fiftieth birthday. Known for his idiosyncrasy of never wearing a colour of any kind, he nonetheless lived a kaleidoscopic life. Heron-Allen made significant contributions to many diverse subjects. Who’s Who documents his wide-ranging scholarly pursuits: “Persian Literature; Marine Zoology; Meteorology; Heraldry; Bibliography; Occasional Essays and Scientific Romances; Auricula and Asparagus Culture”.† He published books on these subjects and many others, including violin-making, palmistry, Buddhism, the Egyptian Nefer sign, a purple sapphire (written under the pseudonym of Christopher Blayre), and a cheetah girl (privately printed). He was an early champion of the Boy Scout Movement, and during World War I was known as “The Black Commissioner”. He even received special permission from Chief Scout, General Baden-Powell, to wear black, from hat to puttees. Heron-Allen joined the Staff of the War Office, in the Department of the Ministry of Intelligence (MI7) in May 1918, where he dealt specifically with the publication of propaganda. In 1919, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society for his work on Foraminifera (microscopic marine organisms).

Although he was born in London, owned property there, and remained closely connected with his family firm of Allen and Son, a firm of solicitors in Soho which was well-known for nearly two centuries, Heron-Allen spent most of his adult life at “Large Acres”, his estate in Selsey, Sussex, near the southernmost tip of England, which he bought, designed and built, starting in 1906.

It was here that Heron-Allen devoted seventeen years to experiments with asparagus culture, creating a variety he named “The Selsey Giant”. In his pamphlet entitled Asparagus as a Hobby for Amateurs and Epicures (1934), he states that the reputation of The Selsey Giant “has spread far and wide, and so many have been the applications that I have received for seeds, that I have been compelled to hand the distribution over to Messrs. Sutton’s (of Reading), to whom I now refer my applicants” (p. 3). It was also in Selsey where Heron-Allen enjoyed entertaining a veritable Who’s Who of friends, of which at least two contributed to the foundation of the Wine and Food Society.

Throughout his life, Heron-Allen enjoyed a charmed circle of friends. He was a friend to Oscar and Constance Wilde and their two sons. In 1885 he cast the horoscope of their first son, Cyril Wilde, and by 1924 Heron-Allen was a mentor and generous host to their youngest son, Vyvyan Holland, who had his last name changed because of the family tragedy and public scandal.

It appears that it was through Wilde’s youngest son that Heron-Allen first met A.J. As Julian Symons records in his biography of his brother:

One day in the last month of 1922 a young man named Vyvyan Holland was walking along Pall Mall. It was his habit to walk along the street staring firmly at the ground; but when about to turn from Pall Mall East into Lower Regent Street, he departed from this custom so far as to look up at the first floor windows on the opposite side of the road. He saw there, written upon a large signboard, and also painted across two windows, the words THE FIRST EDITION CLUB.

A.J.A Symons: His Life and Speculations, p. 1

The sign caught his attention, and Holland, a keen collector of first editions, fine wine, paperweights and other rarities, crossed the street, entered the building, and walked upstairs. When a door opened, he saw the unexpected: not the elderly, untidy and bearded figure he imagined he would find, but a tall, svelte young man, wearing a lavender-coloured suit of an advanced cut.

The die was cast. The First Edition Club brought together like-minded bibliophiles and provided an entrÈe to other societies. One such society was Ye Sette of Odd Volumes, an exclusive dining and literary society founded by the antiquarian bookseller Bernard Quaritch in 1878. Heron-Allen, known to the Odd Volumes Brotherhood as Necromancer, had strong connections, having joined in 1883, resigned some years later, and rejoined in 1924. Two years after Heron-Allen had returned, two new members were inducted -- Idler (Vyvyan Holland) and Speculator (A.J.A. Symons). Vintner (AndrÈ Simon) was not far behind, joining in 1931.

The Odd Volumes met once a month, and they presented learned papers, ranging from science to the arts, some of which were published as finely bound “opuscula” available only to members of the society. Their meals were memorable, and today their menus, illustrated and printed on the finest paper, are collectors’ items.

In his remembrances, Vyvyan Holland states that it was through the Odd Volumes that A.J. first met AndrÈ Simon. Here friendships, societies and books blossomed. As Holland notes, “Out of A.J.’s friendship with AndrÈ Simon grew the Wine and Food Society and the Saintsbury Club. Both of these institutions owed their success very largely to A.J.’s energy and personality, though the original idea for both came from AndrÈ Simon”. Furthermore, it was there, at the meetings of the Odd Volumes, “that the foundations of his now famous bibliographical study The Quest for Corvo were laid” (An Evergreen Garland, p. 129). A.J.’s contribution was a short paper entitled Frederick, Baron Corvo, and it was read in October 1926. It was a highly-prized opuscula, and the seed had been planted for what would become, eight years later, A.J.’s masterpiece.

Holland also recalls his bond with Heron-Allen. “What attracted me most to Heron-Allen was his love of collecting things. Apart from his collections of books, which interested him most, he also collected old English silver, glass, china, musical instruments, seals, walking sticks, precious stones and stamps. Within my means, I too have always been an incurable collector” (Time Remembered: After PËre Lachaise, p. 132).

A.J. shared the same incurable urge for collecting. He collected fascinating friends as well as first editions, music boxes, Victorian card cases, and more. In Heron-Allen’s “Large Acres” guest book, beautifully bound in soft leather and secured by sterling silver clasps, one page is filled with photographs of and an inscription by A.J. The date is 15-18 March 1929, and the following, in A.J.’s finest calligraphic hand, shows a shared love of curios, literature and laughter:

My goods are all genuine, not spuriose.”

In addition to these wry comments, this visitors’ book contains many remarks about memorable meals, including fresh lobsters from Selsey. It was too early in the season for A.J. to have tasted and recorded his impressions of Heron-Allen’s experiments with asparagus. However, by the Summer of 1934 these experiments would be reported by Heron-Allen himself in Wine and Food, where, besides calling for the finest variety, he insisted upon classic cookery, noting that “the sooner the stalks are cooked after being cut the better”.

In May 1938, when epicures from the Wine and Food Society travelled 100 miles to eat asparagus cut the same morning, similar suggestions emerged. This was a celebration of the

art of good living, and it was in keeping with the spirit of the ground-breaking work of the

co-founders, their co-conspirators and, alone among them, the man in black -- Edward Heron-Allen, F.R.S, Sometime Necromancer and sower of seeds.

For more information on Edward Heron-Allen, please see the Heron-Allen Society: www.heron-allen.co.uk

Dr Joan Navarre is writing the first biography of Edward Heron-Allen, FRS.†She has taught Composition and lectured in English Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University, and Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, USA.†Her special field of interest is Oscar Wilde and the 1890s.