How an Alicante farmer turned an agricultural mistake into Spain’s most sought-after shoot.

Food Chain

How taste travels

 

The first time I tried to reach Carlos Camañes Cobo for our scheduled interview, he didn’t pick up. A voice message arrived soon after. “We’ve had an incredible storm here,” he said. “It’s done quite a lot of damage to the houses and the fields. Call me tomorrow and we’ll talk.”

It would take nearly a week before we managed to speak. Camañes was busy dealing with the damage from the storm, which came after months of extreme drought. Farming means dealing with nature’s surprises, often unwelcome ones. Camañes has learned as much over decades of working the land in Villena, north of Alicante, where his family’s roots go back more than two centuries. “First it was the extreme drought, and now this,” he told me.

Camañes is the third generation of his family to work on the farm. His grandfather planted apple and pear trees here; his father later turned to olive trees. Today, Camañes grows 14 hectares of asparagus, which he sells through Green Asparagus, the company he created after closing his gastrobar and returning to the family land. By then, Camañes already knew that the unexpected could grow in his fields.

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