I try to eat seasonally and I am an avid gardener. We are still eating the garlic and onions I harvested last September. I will use up all the onions by the end of May but I will be able to harvest green onions from the garden and my garlic will last until I harvest in September.
Growing and consuming crops seasonally usually results a flavorful product, and it allows the environment to cycle through its natural resources and seasons like it would without human intervention.
But if you live in a place where seasonal fruits and vegetables are hard to come by, like an isolated area, it can be difficult to eat seasonally. More important than eating seasonally is making sure you get the nourishment you need. I think you need to be pragmatic. If my onion crop failed last year or I ran out in January I would certainly buy commercial onions because it would be hard to make a flavorful winter soup without these basics. I try and to support this sustainable lifestyle, but I put nutrition and health first. I won’t buy strawberries when they are out of season but I could not get through the winter without citrus even though citrus cannot be grown in New Hampshire. I preserve and freeze my garden peppers but if a family member is visiting for the weekend and they love peppers and sausage I will buy peppers if I need to because I know it will bring a smile to their face. Most of the meals will be seasonal.
I am looking forward to the cookbook. I will order it today. Thank you!
Sounds like the first two replies are both from New Hampshire?! Citrus and avocados are my regular never-in-season-locally purchases😉 That said, for decades, and through a dozen moves, I have always focused our eating around what is available from local farmers, and therefore what’s in season. Sometimes this has meant shopping at farmers markets and sometimes that has meant joining a CSA. Since I cook everyday, it is an easy way to stream-line decision making when it comes to deciding what’s for dinner. I have been super impressed with the local small-farm community on the seacoast of New Hampshire. I now shop at local farm stores (mostly Vernon Family Farm), and use the fantastic co-op style CSA Three Rivers Farmers Alliance. (I’m just being specific here bc of the unexpected coincidence that there is another person in NH posting here!) I happened to have purchased Stagioni for my sister-in-law for Christmas, so when I saw that it would be a cookbook club pick, I was excited for the excuse to buy a copy for myself. What a beautiful and delightful cookbook!
I’m so old and was raised in the hinterlands of the united states that I remember seasonal fruits and vegetables. Oranges and citrus were best in the fall, root vegetables in the winter, etc. The excitement of getting the giant mixed nuts from the Sears Catalog is still palpable and my father searching out his favorite in-the-shell brazil nuts and hazelnuts is a memory imprinted upon my brain. It somehow creates gratitude.
Looking forward to getting this cookbook! I’m in Texas and it’s not always easy to eat seasonal. I grow my own tomatoes and peppers and eggplant but in winter I don’t do well growing root vegetables so I will buy from the store. I grow lots of flowers and lavender for my bees. Here in USA they import so much non seasonal items. I try to buy only organic or from local farms. I buy all my meat only from local farm with good pastured animals. So much of the food in USA is filled with chemicals and sugar. I basically make all my own bread now and no longer buy any processed food. We are healthier for it. We are spoiled here with any type of fruit or vegetable available anytime but it does take away from the anticipation and tastiness. Tomatoes in the store have no flavor. I love the ones I grow right off the vine. This time of year we have wild blackberries called dewberries that we find all over our property. I will go out today and see how many I can find to make cobbler. We have a mulberry tree with mulberries that are so good just picked off the tree or put on oatmeal. These things we look forward to in late Spring early Summer. It is starting to get hotter here now and Summer is about here. Sorry for my rambling…. I really liked this post 🥰 hugs, Lisa
Oh my goodness, when the whole family gets into seasonal harvesting it just lights me up. I struggle to exercise for its own sake, but if we’re walking the neighborhood so the kids can harvest mulberries in the park and come home looking like an ink factory exploded on them, I can go for hours. And they look forward to mulberry crepes and syrup all year.
Ciao Giulia, i truly appreciated your choice of topic today. Eating seasonally is difficult, especially here growing up in the northeast US where huge grocery store produce departments have made anything and everything available for purchase. There have been more local farms that offer weekly co-op boxes of their seasonal vegetables, which although lovely with gorgeous vegetables are very limited due to the local climate.Seasonal eating and cooking seasonally is always on my mind but my two little grand daughters love blueberries, what’s a Nonna to do?
This deserves a second read first me to take it all in in its entirety. Certainly making my mouth water. As for seasonality, I live in Melbourne. Australia, and most of the good we get is relatively fresh, some picked too soon and stored in the cool rooms, you definitely know that when you cut open a tomato or an apple and it is sprouting. Preferably I like to buy from the markets as you know they are bringing fruit and vegetables fresh each day. I remember when growing up that there was no way you could buy cabbages, and Brussels sprouts for example, any other time than Winter. Life has changed and not necessarily for the better.
Eating seasonally has changed for me since moving from Alaska to Nebraska. At home, the proteins were more seasonal than the fruit and veg, but we still told time based on when the raspberries popped, whether the salmon was fresh or canned, and the late blueberries just in time for the moose hunt. The growing season is a sprint, so “spring veg” gets May, if the snow is gone, or early June but you can be eating peas, kale, pumpkins, and peppers all at once in August and the garden is in bed by late September.
Nebraska growing is far more like a marathon, with our last tomatoes coming in October last year, fresh herbs all winter except for February, and our first greens coming up in early March. It’s taking some adjusting!
I think one of the best things I’ve done, that started in Alaska and has continued here, was to look to indigenous food ways to see what the land provides when and how it has been traditionally preserved. It’s eye opening to see how much earlier dock and dandelions are ready than lettuce and kale, so I can get that sense of shifting food seasons way before the farmer’s market gets going. I love fresh greens going into soup with the last of the potatoes and squash. It’s a beautiful cycle.
I try to eat seasonally and I am an avid gardener. We are still eating the garlic and onions I harvested last September. I will use up all the onions by the end of May but I will be able to harvest green onions from the garden and my garlic will last until I harvest in September.
Growing and consuming crops seasonally usually results a flavorful product, and it allows the environment to cycle through its natural resources and seasons like it would without human intervention.
But if you live in a place where seasonal fruits and vegetables are hard to come by, like an isolated area, it can be difficult to eat seasonally. More important than eating seasonally is making sure you get the nourishment you need. I think you need to be pragmatic. If my onion crop failed last year or I ran out in January I would certainly buy commercial onions because it would be hard to make a flavorful winter soup without these basics. I try and to support this sustainable lifestyle, but I put nutrition and health first. I won’t buy strawberries when they are out of season but I could not get through the winter without citrus even though citrus cannot be grown in New Hampshire. I preserve and freeze my garden peppers but if a family member is visiting for the weekend and they love peppers and sausage I will buy peppers if I need to because I know it will bring a smile to their face. Most of the meals will be seasonal.
I am looking forward to the cookbook. I will order it today. Thank you!
Sounds like the first two replies are both from New Hampshire?! Citrus and avocados are my regular never-in-season-locally purchases😉 That said, for decades, and through a dozen moves, I have always focused our eating around what is available from local farmers, and therefore what’s in season. Sometimes this has meant shopping at farmers markets and sometimes that has meant joining a CSA. Since I cook everyday, it is an easy way to stream-line decision making when it comes to deciding what’s for dinner. I have been super impressed with the local small-farm community on the seacoast of New Hampshire. I now shop at local farm stores (mostly Vernon Family Farm), and use the fantastic co-op style CSA Three Rivers Farmers Alliance. (I’m just being specific here bc of the unexpected coincidence that there is another person in NH posting here!) I happened to have purchased Stagioni for my sister-in-law for Christmas, so when I saw that it would be a cookbook club pick, I was excited for the excuse to buy a copy for myself. What a beautiful and delightful cookbook!
I’m so old and was raised in the hinterlands of the united states that I remember seasonal fruits and vegetables. Oranges and citrus were best in the fall, root vegetables in the winter, etc. The excitement of getting the giant mixed nuts from the Sears Catalog is still palpable and my father searching out his favorite in-the-shell brazil nuts and hazelnuts is a memory imprinted upon my brain. It somehow creates gratitude.
Looking forward to getting this cookbook! I’m in Texas and it’s not always easy to eat seasonal. I grow my own tomatoes and peppers and eggplant but in winter I don’t do well growing root vegetables so I will buy from the store. I grow lots of flowers and lavender for my bees. Here in USA they import so much non seasonal items. I try to buy only organic or from local farms. I buy all my meat only from local farm with good pastured animals. So much of the food in USA is filled with chemicals and sugar. I basically make all my own bread now and no longer buy any processed food. We are healthier for it. We are spoiled here with any type of fruit or vegetable available anytime but it does take away from the anticipation and tastiness. Tomatoes in the store have no flavor. I love the ones I grow right off the vine. This time of year we have wild blackberries called dewberries that we find all over our property. I will go out today and see how many I can find to make cobbler. We have a mulberry tree with mulberries that are so good just picked off the tree or put on oatmeal. These things we look forward to in late Spring early Summer. It is starting to get hotter here now and Summer is about here. Sorry for my rambling…. I really liked this post 🥰 hugs, Lisa
Oh my goodness, when the whole family gets into seasonal harvesting it just lights me up. I struggle to exercise for its own sake, but if we’re walking the neighborhood so the kids can harvest mulberries in the park and come home looking like an ink factory exploded on them, I can go for hours. And they look forward to mulberry crepes and syrup all year.
I’m still trying to get blue stains out of my fingernails 😂 we’ve been getting mulberries everyday now 💙
What ramblings?! Sounds like wisdom.
Ciao Giulia, i truly appreciated your choice of topic today. Eating seasonally is difficult, especially here growing up in the northeast US where huge grocery store produce departments have made anything and everything available for purchase. There have been more local farms that offer weekly co-op boxes of their seasonal vegetables, which although lovely with gorgeous vegetables are very limited due to the local climate.Seasonal eating and cooking seasonally is always on my mind but my two little grand daughters love blueberries, what’s a Nonna to do?
Aww. My first granddaughter was born in February. I must prepare.
This deserves a second read first me to take it all in in its entirety. Certainly making my mouth water. As for seasonality, I live in Melbourne. Australia, and most of the good we get is relatively fresh, some picked too soon and stored in the cool rooms, you definitely know that when you cut open a tomato or an apple and it is sprouting. Preferably I like to buy from the markets as you know they are bringing fruit and vegetables fresh each day. I remember when growing up that there was no way you could buy cabbages, and Brussels sprouts for example, any other time than Winter. Life has changed and not necessarily for the better.
Love the pistachio wi courgettes..such a good idea.
Eating seasonally has changed for me since moving from Alaska to Nebraska. At home, the proteins were more seasonal than the fruit and veg, but we still told time based on when the raspberries popped, whether the salmon was fresh or canned, and the late blueberries just in time for the moose hunt. The growing season is a sprint, so “spring veg” gets May, if the snow is gone, or early June but you can be eating peas, kale, pumpkins, and peppers all at once in August and the garden is in bed by late September.
Nebraska growing is far more like a marathon, with our last tomatoes coming in October last year, fresh herbs all winter except for February, and our first greens coming up in early March. It’s taking some adjusting!
I think one of the best things I’ve done, that started in Alaska and has continued here, was to look to indigenous food ways to see what the land provides when and how it has been traditionally preserved. It’s eye opening to see how much earlier dock and dandelions are ready than lettuce and kale, so I can get that sense of shifting food seasons way before the farmer’s market gets going. I love fresh greens going into soup with the last of the potatoes and squash. It’s a beautiful cycle.