‘I got my fortune read – using asparagus’

Asparagus season has officially arrived. But before you cook up those sweet, juicy spears, how about using them to predict your future?

By Kate Jones

Jemima Packington claims to be able to read the future using asparagus. Everything she needs to know can be seen in the shapes made by the spears when they’re tossed onto a surface, she says.

Also known as Mystic Veg, Packington, who lives in the UK city of Bath, says that she has successfully predicted a number of big events including Brexit, Mexit and Boris Johnson’s tenure as prime minister. Such is the interest in her work, this alternative fortune teller has appeared on various television programmes in the UK and US.

“The asparagus stalks make patterns which I am able to interpret,” says Packington. “When the vegetables are cast, the overall picture presents both symbols and letters of the alphabet which I use to make predictions,” she explains.

When I first heard about Mystic Veg, I was more than a little intrigued. Which is why, one Thursday lunchtime, I find myself throwing 13 stalks of asparagus onto a cloth on my dining room table and taking photos to send to a self-confessed ‘asparamancer’.

A talent unearthed

Packington grew up in Evesham, an area in Worcestershire famed for being an asparagus-growing hotspot. She says that it was during her childhood that her ability to use the vegetable to predict the future was discovered by her parents.

“Apparently, I grabbed a handful of very buttery asparagus and it fell from my hand onto the flagstone floor, and I made a very precocious remark. My parents couldn’t remember what it was, but the whole place went very quiet. It was only when I got a bit older that my mother said she had an elderly aunt who read tea leaves, and couldn’t help but wonder if the talent had skipped a generation.”

As a young adult, Packington began to work with asparagus to make predictions, saying, “things just seemed to click.”

When I contact Packington to request a reading, she advises me to cast some asparagus spears (number irrelevant) onto a flat surface, preferably with a pale background. I then need to take a photo of the way the stalks have fallen, mark where I was standing when I released them and send the image to her.

I follow the instructions, including my sock-clad feet in one of the pictures to give an idea of my positioning. Five days later, my predictions are in.

The first concerns romance: I have told Packington I am single, and the asparamancer envisages a person “coming into my life very soon who will have a significant effect.”

Things take a slightly more specific turn with the next prediction — that a visit to New York is on the cards in November. This is an interesting hunch: New York is on my list of places to visit and I’ve been considering a trip to the US this year.

Packington observes the letters K, H and A interlinked in my stalk pattern, which she claims suggests a party or a celebration of some kind with individuals with these initials. At first, this makes me think of a close friend who is getting married this summer and whose first name begins with one of these letters. But with my mum and dad celebrating 30 years of marriage this autumn, could the letters H and A also stand for ‘happy anniversary’?

The bigger picture

As for societal forecasts, the asparamancer has created a specific set of predictions for 2023, with these covering everything from a happy coronation to a continued focus on climate change fears.

“When I’m doing New Year’s predictions, I use a list of suggested subjects which have been passed to me by friends and family,” she says. “I concentrate on each question in turn and cast the spears for an answer.”

In this year’s forecasts, allotments are envisaged to become even more popular, agricultural labour is expected to boom and Packington also predicts the Lionesses will win the Women’s World Cup. “With this prediction, I saw arrows pointed towards a crown,” she explains.

Nothing too shocking there, then – although it has made me more eager for this summer's tournament.

Sticking with sports, Packington foresees the football club Chelsea moving “from strength to strength” with rugby union faring less well and seeing more clubs go into receivership.

Packington also anticipates “a removal of royal titles” and the exposure of high-profile political figures (though not MPs) as corrupt.

What to do with the asparagus after it’s predicted your future

Whether you believe in its fortune telling power or not, it's worth adding asparagus to your next shopping list as the short season for the British-grown stuff (which customarily runs from St George’s Day on 23 April until Midsummer’s Day on 21 June) has officially begun. Happily, there are lots of ways to put it to work in the kitchen while it's at its best.

Grower Chris Chinn from Herefordshire supplier Wye Valley Asparagus also chairs the UK’s Asparagus Growers’ Association, so is the obvious person to ask for tips on preparing this spring veg.

After washing, it’s important to chop off any pale bits at the base of the spear with a knife, he tells me, as these will be tough and woody. That’s opposed to snapping off the ends with your fingers, which is the most common method but could see you waste perfectly good parts of the vegetable.

“There’s a theory that asparagus snaps where it’s most tender, but I think the reality is that it snaps wherever you're holding it,” Chinn says.

Once it's prepped, use it to make an easy starter for a special dinner, perhaps. “Just boil it for a few minutes, grate some cheese over the top and add a bit of butter,” suggests Chinn. For a more showstopping effect, you could serve it with hollandaise sauce, or poached egg.

Asparagus can be cooked in a variety of ways: boiled, steamed, grilled, fried and roasted, for instance.

“You can use roasted asparagus to stir through a quiche or a creamy pasta dish,” notes Rupert Cooper, owner of Philleigh Way cookery school, Truro. Meanwhile Sean Jones, head chef at Gloucestershire’s Burleigh Court says, “puréeing it works well to add additional flavour to a dish,” which is exactly how this easy asparagus pasta recipe is made.

Asparagus also fits perfectly into lighter options like soup, omelettes and smoothies, and you can even eat it raw or partially cooked.

“Shave off strips of with a peeler until you are down to the stem, finely chop those and then run them through salads or even stir fry them,” suggests Cooper.

From fortune telling to stir-frying, it looks like there's no end to this spring vegetable's potential.

Originally published April 2023