Seasonal Fruits & Vegetables

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I’m usually a tomato snob and won’t eat them much when they are out of season.

I caved and we bought some at the produce store this afternoon.

Although they looked pretty, they were not as good as they looked and I now long for the taste of a luscious late summer tomato again.

Once upon a time we ate food in season. Oranges, lemons, lines, and grapefruit came from afar, bananas and pineapples too. Does anyone else remember receiving a mandarin orange in their Christmas stocking? I remember when the first box of mandarin oranges came home, each sphere wrapped in its sheath of green tissue paper. They were a treasured treat each winter. Now they are available year round and they are somehow less special, less appreciated.

Most other produce was relatively local and that limited the selection. Winter brought root vegetables – potatoes, beets, carrots, turnips – and others that stored well, like cabbage. Beans, peas, and corn were picked in the summer and frozen. Cherries, apricots, peaches and pears were picked from Grandma & Grandpa’s orchard and canned. Strawberries and raspberries were eaten fresh, some turned into jam for the winter months.

Today however, we don’t need to can or freeze foods. We can get strawberries in February (they have no taste, but they look pretty), and we can have a tomato in January, which is equally flavourless.

We can have what we want when we want, but should we?

118 Photos in 2018 – 103. Nutritious