Eating In Season

I've read a lot of articles recently on eating in season and it's something that I try and follow quite strictly, to the point where I won't buy my favourite berries except for a few months in the summer. I love that in our local Sainsburys they've just started to add in labels in the Fruit and Veg section indicating which items are in season at the moment, which really helps to know what to buy at any one time of the year.

I find that British vegetables just taste so much better, which is hardly surprising as a lot of air freighted vegetables are picked before they are fully ripe, so they last the journey and for long enough in the supermarkets, with the idea that they will ripen on our supermarket shelves. However, as we rarely have the weather warm enough to ripen them, I find they always taste a bit raw and definitely not to their best.

In contrast, you can get amazing chunky potatoes and apples this time of year which are massive and full of flavour and have probably come from within 100 miles of London, which is just amazing. I love when supermarkets put the name of the farmer and the farm on the food products, it makes it feel some homely and the next best thing from buying straight from farmers markets.

This website http://eattheseasons.co.uk/foodseasons.htm is brilliant to give an idea of what you can get and when and I've been making some delicious root vegetable based dishes this time of year. Whilst I love being able to buy piles of berries in the summer, there is also something very comforting about munching on all these wholesome and homely root vegetables while it's cold and frosty outside.