Asparagus Season

"...Basil lay back on the divan and watched her with fascination. This was how he liked to see women behave in moments of alarm. He rejoiced, always, in the spectacle of women at a disadvantage: thus he would watch, in the asparagus season, a dribble of melted butter on a woman's chin, marring her beauty and making her ridiculous, while she would talk and smile and turn her head, not knowing how she appeared to him..."

Evelyn Waugh - Put Out More Flags (1942)