Hop shoots are found growing wild in forests, groves, and even gardens. Here’s how to identify them.
Hops are a flower used to produce beer, but its young shoots, called “hop sprouts”, are grown and eaten like asparagus. It is a luxury product, as popular and almost as unaffordable as caviar or truffles. Indeed, these young shoots appear with spring. Few people know that they are among the most expensive vegetables in the world. In the Netherlands, a kilo of hop shoots costs up to… 1000 euros! Very popular in Belgium, these refined shoots are even nicknamed “Truffles of the North”. Their taste is slightly bitter and nutty. Hop shoots are most often prepared by frying them in butter. Harvesting is a long and laborious job, each throw weighing on average 1 gram, hence its high price! Only the end of about 3 cm is edible, the rest being already too woody.
We consider them weeds, although they often grow near our gardens or on our walkways. Worldwide, only a dozen producers have started producing this delicate vegetable, particularly in Bavaria, Belgium and Alsace. But it is also found in the wild. How to recognize these precious vegetables? They emerge from the ground and climb upwards. Young hop shoots are green or white in color. In forests or clearings, the search for hop shoots is not the easiest, since it has to be done manually by removing the leaves. The best way to know where to find them is to spot the hop flowers the previous year, which helps to locate the feet. A bit like mushrooms, you have to know the corners!
Since hop shoots are not very well known, many of us simply trample them on walks in the forest, not realizing that a kilo can reach the dizzying sum of around 1,000 euros. White shoots are the most valuable – they are harder to find in the ground, but grow the earliest, from the end of winter. They are white because they have not yet been exposed to daylight.