Operas

Listen to a Clip From Harvard’s Asparagus Opera

Tastes best set to music.
Tastes best set to music. Photo: iStockphoto

Start your morning off right with the ambient sounds of asparagus! Tonight, Boston chef Jason Bond (Bondir) and composer Ben Houge stage a one-night-only asparagus opera, Food Opera: Four Asparagus Compositions, at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Invited guests will feast upon an asparagus-themed menu while music plays to enhance the flavors and textures. We’ve got an exclusive clip of what we can only assume is the world’s first-ever asparagus opera right here, so you can visualize at your desk. This ditty is called “Hot White Asparagus Soup, Togarashi Marshmallow, Nori Powder, Miso-hazelnuts.”

“There’s not necessarily a one-to-one correspondence between each ingredient and an instrument, but we’re definitely emphasizing the woody element of asparagus with the
cello and marimba, and the togarishi is evoked by the sparkling, chiming quality of the high crotales. I think the marimba pattern also has a kind of rolling, liquid quality to
it,” Houge tells Grub Street.

Relax and let the sounds of asparagus take you away.

Listen to “White Asparagus Soup” by Ben Houge & Jason Bond:



Ben Houge & Jason Bond‚ White Asparagus Soup


Listen to a Clip From Harvard’s Asparagus Opera