I try to eat food in its season because it always tastes better. Usually the texture's better, too, and the color and so on. And generally it is cheaper than when it's not in season. So for very practical reasons, seasonal eating makes sense to me.
But there are also less practical and more philosophical reasons to eat in season. Do you pay attention to the seasons in your kitchen?
It's important to note that there are some vegetables that I never think about seasonally. Lemons and onions and grapefruits seem to be seasonless to me. So do carrots. And while I'm aware of new (green) garlic or new potatoes, both these foods also have a ubiquitous, year round presence. So I'm not that strict about my 'only in season' preference.
But what about meat and dairy? Don't they have a season, too? And what have we done to manipulate those natural cycles to have milk and lamb and butter all year round? Might be helpful to find out.
Foods grown out of their season require a lot more energy, either to ship them in from another hemisphere or to augment current conditions to match their growing conditions, such as hothouses, sprinklers, fertilizers, etc. Eating with the seasons lowers our impact on the environment.
Is it always possible? No way. How can a northern city like Chicago or New York eat seasonally year round? Not with our current food system model, although there are some forward thinking people who are looking into more sustainable ways to grow local food year round for urban areas. Vertical Farming and Will Allen of Growing Power are just two examples of this.
But for me, the most compelling reason to eat with the seasons is that it roots me to place, grounds me in the sense of belonging. I'm in the Bay Area and it's late spring. So we're just about peaking on local strawberries, fava beans, asparagus. Sand Dabs are on the menus and at the fishmongers. Some of the new cheeses are starting to come in from Sonoma. When I lived in Wisconsin it was lilacs and peonies and asparagus, too. Tender heads of lettuce and fresh peas and spring onions.
So I don't want asparagus all year round, all the time, whenever. I want it to be a special treat, a sign that the wheel is turning and spring has come again. When its season is over, there will be plenty of other delicious things to take its place. A tomato in August is surely one of life's most amazing things. Why limp through most of the rest of the months sawing away at those watery mealy imitators? Eat your tomato when it's time for tomatoes and then move on. 'Eat your zip code' as much as you can!
(Image: Dana Velden)
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One other aspect of eating seasonally is that it encourages me to experiment. There are things at the farmer's market I have never seen, and make me wonder "What's that like?" etc.
And since I have only a short time for Asparagus (which I LOVE!!) or Tomato, I try lots of different ways to enjoy them, see how much I can really get out of them. What's a new way to pair it, etc.
view Daigan's profile
Great post. It also requires me to experiment w/ what looks good at the market. I can't wait to can and preserve the bounty of this growing season to make it through the long, cold Chicago winter.
view WhitinChi's profile
I'm glad that WhitinChi mentioned preserving. Our current industrial food system that allows for all things at all times is not age-old, after all, and people lived in northern climates eating mostly local food long before seasonless foods.
Local, but not necessarily fresh. Although it can be a stretch to call what is in many produce departments in the winter fresh. And local winter food doesn't have to be horrible--few people ever turned their noses up at my Grandma's fig preserves.
view TAC's profile
I've been trying to eat seasonally this year, which is no joke in Canada. We did a ton of preserving this summer/fall as well. And I have never been so excited to see asparagus and spinach! Also fiddleheads which I had never eaten before. Being seasonal has been so great for my cooking creativity, it's hard to get in ruts when your food is always changing.
view Hanna's profile
You know, I agree with the sentiment, but this is like the ten billionth article/post I've seen expounding these ideas. It's been everywhere for the last few years. We get it already--let's move beyond it. On a site like this especially you're just preaching to the choir, aren't you?
What you said about the ingredients that seem non-seasonal (e.g. milk, meat) and how they've been unnaturally made so is quite interesting. Maybe we need to go more in-depth into that...
I don't mean to rain on the buy local parade, but don't we all know this?
view BunnyCucina's profile
I mostly try to cook and eat seasonally - as in, I'm not going to serve an insalata caprese at Thanksgiving! It just seems wrong most of the time to serve things out of season. Spring is for fresh, green, growing things; summer is for berries and tomatoes; fall is for squash and apples; winter is for dried beans and lentils. They're all just right, at the time they belong in. Out of season, many foods just taste weird.
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