Hello friends! I’m so excited to share the start of a new column here on the blog and it’s all about seasonal eating. While I don’t always adhere to seasonal guidelines, I am always looking for ways to capitalize on what is ripe and when. For that, I found a great resource in Liz from Carpé Season. I ‘met’ Liz a few years ago when I was putting together a holiday series and ever since then, I’ve loved stopping by her blog to admire her quick wit, tasty recipes and gorgeous photography (and videos too). We’ve had the opportunity to meet in person a few times and she is one of those people who you wish you could duplicate a million times over. Clever, interesting and down-to-earth, a woman who is real about life as a wife and mother. I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to get to know her better and I’m over-the-moon to have her head up this column.
Hi! I’m Liz, and I’m so happy to be kicking off this series on seasonal eating. It’s pretty evident that seasonal eating is a priority for me; the name of my blog is Carpé Season, but it may mean something different for you. Perhaps you read the name of this series, and thought, “Great! More hippie nonsense on the internet!” Or perhaps you inwardly fist-pumped because you grow every ounce of food you eat in your backyard using recycled rainwater. No matter where you fall in that spectrum, seasonal (and thereby local) eating is worth a shot, and I thought I’d start out this series by telling you why.
Food that’s in season tastes better.
We’ve all done it. We’ve caved, bought a strawberry in January, or worse, a tomato in March. And it’s flavorless, mealy…like something that should be served in prison. Food that’s eaten out of season doesn’t taste right, and my theory is that this is so because the produce is grumpy. Imagine sitting in a sun-soaked field in California, surrounded by your closest friends and family. And then, a week or so before you’re ripe, you’re plucked from the ground, placed in cold storage, and shipped cross country, and only made to look red and ripe after being gassed with chemicals. I’d be grumpy and flavorless too.
But in-season produce is the exact opposite. If bought from a farmers market, those in-season strawberries, peppers, and tomatoes are often only hours old and full of flavor, with perfect texture. You can even smell these in-season beauties from a short distance. Food that’s in season tastes better.
Grilled Asparagus with Lemon Chive Vinaigrette – Carpé Season
Food that’s in season is cheap!
You, like me, may be in a position of trying to save a little money and make your budget work. I’ll be real here: as much as I’d like to, I can’t always buy the most organic of items. But seasonal produce is often cheap. Once those zucchini come into season, people are practically giving them away, and it’s the same with everything else. You can see this reflected in grocery store sales as well. Once something is ripe, it’s ripe, and farmers know they can’t hang onto it for weeks on end, and so, by nature, those prices are going to drop when produce is in abundance.
Strawberry Shortcake from Scratch – this heart of mine
Seasonal food creates anticipation.
I’m going to get just a little philosophical on you. So many things are that much more enjoyable when you wait for them – food included. Think about that batch of chocolate chip cookies you can smell from outside your house and just how torturous those last few minutes are as they finish baking and cooling. But once you finally bite into that gooey goodness, it tastes all the better. It’s the same process that makes putting on a pair of sandals for the first time after a long winter so gratifying.
And so it is with seasonal produce. If you deprive yourself of traditional salads all winter, you won’t even believe how good those first leaves of baby spinach will taste. If you withhold from buying mushy, out-of-season watermelon all year, you will be blown away with how flavorful that in-season watermelon is.
Spinach Salad with Bacon Vinaigrette and Goat Cheese – Carpé Season
So I know you’re all now clamoring and elbowing one another to jump on the seasonal eating bandwagon, but you may be wondering how can you tell what’s in season. The easiest way is just to visit your local farmers market and see what’s available.* Or, here’s a handy little tool that has you choose your state and time of year, and then it generates a list of what’s typically in season for you during that time. Right now in Minnesota, you can find asparagus, rhubarb, and lettuce greens at most markets…and my hunch is that we’re not too far away from strawberries.
*Some of the larger farmers markets may have produce that’s been shipped from other states. You can identify who these imposter stands are if they’re selling things that would never grow in your state…like oranges and mangoes in Minnesota.
Most of the posts in this Season’s Eatings series will include seasonal recipes and tips for how to preserve all of that short-lived goodness. Here’s a couple more recipes to whet your seasonal appetite.
Berry Salad | Strawberry Brushcetta | Rhubarb Crisp | Rhubarb Muffins
Since this is an ongoing column, if you have any questions pertaining to seasonal eating, leave them in the comment section and we will work to get your queries answered.
