Everybody's doing it... #2

What I’m doing here

This all started when I picked the first strawberries from my new allotment.

I'd never been so enraptured or so excited by food. It was a shock to find that anything could taste so good.

So what - I'd never had strawberries before?

No - all the strawberries I'd had were shop-bought, like as not flown in from intensive growers in Spain or Chile, and eaten in winter when strawberries should be a distant summer memory.

It revolutionised my thinking about the fresh food we eat every day. I started to wonder if you got the same amazing taste from all types of food grown and eaten in season. And then I decided to do something about it.

The Year of Eating Seasonally is my little experiment to find out what it's really like not to have it all. The only fruit and veg I and my family are going to eat in 2008 will be what's growing in the ground at the time (or, in winter, what I can get out of store).

I want to find out if the hungry gap is really as hungry as everyone says it is: whether you're really eating nothing but cabbage all winter; and whether you miss strawberries in December.

Along the way I hope I'll save a few tons of carbon being released into the atmosphere on my behalf, as I won't be requiring those French beans flown from Chile, thanks very much. And I hope I'll be rediscovering what food can really taste like.

If you have any comments, please feel free to post them anywhere you like - or you can email me at sallywhite@hotmail.com.

Everybody’s doing it… #2

Posted on March 3, 2008 by SallyGardener

Domestic goddess rating: 50% (freezer day) Five-a-day: 3/5 Food miles: about 40

On the menu: Toast, jam ‘n’ juice (breakfast); peanut butter sandwich (lunch – it’s back-to-work Monday); defrosted chicken casserole, potatoes and savoy cabbage (supper)

Yet more evidence that people around the world are waking up to seasonal eating… I came across a fabby idea on a blog today that positively encourages people to get seasonal.

The blog responsible is Andrea’s Recipes, run by an American mum with some great ideas for food. I often find that US sites have very “American” recipes on them – things that don’t necessarily translate across the big pond. Nothing bad, just unavailable in Europe! But this one’s fine - the latest is a whole lot of bread recipes which one day I’ll get around to trying. I kinda fancy those crunchy apple & cinnamon muffins, too…

But I digress. The bit I’m talking about is called Grow Your Own, and the idea is that each month everyone sends in recipes they’ve made including at least one ingredient they’ve grown for themselves. Which of course means seasonal….

What a great way of getting ordinary “home cooks” thinking about what’s in season now and what to do with it. As well as providing some inspiration for those of us less… well… inspired. There are entries from all around the world, too, so it’s kind of interesting to see what’s in season where (as well as when!) For instance… just learned from January’s contest winners that courgettes (that’s zucchini to the Yanks) is in season in Australia (obvious when you think about it upside-down) and in Brazil they’re eating cilantro (yeah, I didn’t know either – it’s like coriander). And as for malunggay… it’s in season in the Philippines, apparently, and you eat the leaves.

Endlessly interesting… and makes me long for summer again. Sigh…

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Filed under: Cooking, Gardening, Grow your own, healthy eating, Recipes, Seasonal eating Tagged: | Cooking, international eating, Recipes