From Phantom Thread · 2017 · Reconstructed
Asparagus with Butter
Serve when
Serve it at a surprise dinner nobody asked for, and watch a grown man explain, at length, exactly how he'd have preferred it.
In the movie
Theatrical
- 01:05:47 Alma stages a surprise dinner for Reynolds and serves asparagus dressed in butter — knowing full well he prefers it 'with oil and salt.' He eats it anyway, delivering one of the film's most quietly savage lines about his own gallantry.
Alma throws Reynolds a dinner he never asked for, on an evening he wanted to spend alone, and then serves him asparagus dressed exactly the way she knows he doesn't like it. He eats it, compliments himself on his own graciousness for managing to swallow it, and the whole evening curdles from there. It's a tiny, almost absurd act of defiance — butter instead of oil and salt — and the film treats it with the same weight as anything sewn into a Woodcock gown: everything in this house is a message, including dinner.
Ingredients
Method
- Bring a wide pan of salted water to a boil. Blanch the asparagus 2–4 minutes, depending on thickness, until just tender with a little bite left.
- Drain well and pat dry — watery asparagus dilutes the butter and pools unattractively on the plate.
- Arrange on a warm plate and pour the melted butter generously over the top.
- Season with salt and a good grind of black pepper, and serve immediately.
Substitutions
- Reynolds's preference: if you'd rather serve it his way instead of Alma's, skip the butter and dress the warm asparagus with good olive oil, flaky salt, and nothing else — the other half of the film's most pointed dinner-table argument.