Stalking the Perfect Asparagus

Modern California remains a series of geographic enclaves, each one a cultural universe of its own. The differences between these enclaves pop up everywhere, even down to the way they bestow celebrity. In the Bay Area, for example, it is now possible to achieve some level of fame by growing vegetables.

If you come from an enclave outside the Bay Area--Los Angeles, say--you are probably not familiar with the concept of fame through vegetables. More likely you think fame requires something else, like having the Sony Corp. hand you the keys to Columbia Pictures after paying a few billion for the privilege.

Up here in Santa Rosa, though, the broccoli approach to fame seems strange to no one. The demand for the most succulent zucchini and the crunchiest endive--all grown without taint of pesticides--has reached such heights that vegetable growers get mentioned in the same breath with the Chardonnay vintners. One now “has vegetables” the way one used to “have grapes.”

Do not make the common mistake of comparing these vegetables to the stuff you snatch out of the bin at Ralphs. That would be like taking tuna out of a can and calling it sushi. No one refers to “lettuce” here; they refer to “a nice Red Sail” or “a sweet Oak Leaf.” Potatoes, for the record, are usually purple. There are vegetable gourmets now who say they can tell one grower’s arugula from another. And it seems to matter.

Each Saturday morning Hilda Swartz oversees the Santa Rosa farmers market in a parking lot near downtown. The Bay Area now has many farmers markets every bit as good as Santa Rosa’s, but this one was first. And Santa Rosa is the place where promising vegetable growers come to strut their stuff when they decide to turn pro. It’s kind of like opening a play out of town. You can get discovered here, and be propelled to the big time.

By 9 a.m. the growers have set up their stalls and the parking lot is awash with the most splendid artifacts of the vegetable arts. Above each stall is the name of the farm, names that would do justice to the best vineyards. There is Via Verde Farms, Skylark Ranch, Tierra Vegetables. You don’t fool with people from a place like Tierra Vegetables.

When all is ready, Swartz rings a bell to start the buying and then cruises the aisles, scrutinizing the piles of radicchio and white eggplant. She pokes here, pokes there, making sure it’s right.

Every stall is so heaped with elegant produce that it’s hard to tell who has gained a step on his competitors. So a visitor asks, “Hilda, who’s the biggest star here? Who’s boffo?”

Swartz shrugs. Apparently the question is a no-brainer. “That would be Bobby Cannard,” she says.

Oh, yes. You might think of Cannard as the Jon Peters/Peter Guber of Santa Rosa. From a modest start at the farmers market, Cannard has reached an apogee of sorts. He now supplies vegetables more or less exclusively to Chez Panisse in Berkeley, a place so fanatical about its plant life that the chefs have been known to place a single, perfect strawberry in front of customers for dessert.

When they did that strawberry number, Cannard was most likely the grower. So good is Cannard that his name now often appears on the menus at Chez Panisse. “Vegetables by Robert Cannard,” or something like that.

Perhaps the name on the menu was the beginning of the celebrity part. In any case, it’s all happened for Cannard. Just recently, “Good Morning America” traveled to Cannard Farm and beamed back images of the man himself tending his celery. A little bit later the “Smithsonian World,” a PBS television series, did the same, and then came Gourmet magazine with some adoring descriptions.

So Cannard has become a kind of prototype. Don’t be surprised if you see him soon in a Dewar’s ad. This is not a bad thing, by any means. Here in Santa Rosa, Cannard’s success is regarded as something to shoot for. After all, the Bay Area is full of famous restaurants, each with a famous chef, and they’re all looking to hold their edge on the vegetable issue. There is the sense in the valley that vegetables still have a long way to go, a major upside.

But just why the vegetable frenzy has been limited to the Bay Area remains a mystery. Perhaps this kind of passion is not transferable across the Tehachapis.

I doubt that. As with fancy pizza, food usually travels from north to south in this state. So watch for vegetables. When you see a little man standing at the freeway exit holding Red Sail lettuce instead of oranges, you will know it’s happening.