09 April 2012

Easter egg hunts & asparagus

I think I figured out how the whole Easter-egg hunt came to be (and if this isn't true, then it is a really good idea).  This past Easter weekend, I had the opportunity to pick wild asparagus for the first time ever.  Wild asparagus grows all over the place in Croatia....in wooded ares, usually under trees, near walls and under bushes.  It is INSANELY difficult to spot.  I'll try and get a picture when I go out again today and post it here, but mainly wild asparagus is really really thin, and brown and thus nearly impossible to see against the brown leaves on the forest floor or against the thin shoots coming up from the bushes at this time of year.

To be able to spot the asparagus, you really need to sort of scrunch down and try and see them at eye level.  Pretty difficult when you are an adult.....but I thought to myself that a small child would be at the perfect height to spot the asparagus.  And if you gave the child a basket to carry into the forest, they'd be able to carefully carry the tender shoots.  All that is left is some sort of incentive for the children.  I mean, I was a child once, and I can't imagine any circumstance that would motivate me to go combing through the underbrush looking carefully for asparagus............except maybe the promise of chocolate.  Yup.  That would have done the trick for me.  And therefore I got the idea that maybe the original Easter-egg hunt went something like this:  kids were handed baskets and told to go hunting for asparagus shoots and to try and find some chocolate eggs hidden in the brush.  Kids could eat the chocolate they found.  And kids would be rewarded with extra chocolate depending on how much asparagus they toted home in their baskets.

Makes sense to me.  A win-win situation for everyone involved, yes?

Sretan Uskrs to everyone!