The Reasons and Meanings for Eating to the Season

If you ask most chefs in America why they like to cook seasonally, some may reply “because the produce or meat tastes better at a certain time of the year” others may simply reply “because the ingredients are fresher and at their peak nutritional value”. This is great that chefs actually take notice to seasonality. This means they have a greater grasp of the ingredients that they choose to cook with, or does it?

Anyone wielding a knife, hidden under checks and whites behind a line can tell you that the growing season of a strawberry is in the spring. I hope for the sake if humanity most people could tell you that. In today’s fast world it’s not unusual to see someone eating a strawberry in the middle of winter. No I’m not talking about a frozen, pickled or preserved strawberry; I’m talking about a fresh one. At this time you’re probably thinking to yourself, "yea, so what?" And you might think I’m a little "insane, mad, not right" for say the next thing I’m about to say but, this is a reason why more and more scientist and companies like Monsanto are altering and perverting the precious produce we love so dearly. Now I’m not saying it’s the only reason, but it’s one reason.

So where do you buy these strawberries when they are out of season? Your best friend, the supermarket, amazingly the only place where a modern civilized person can buy raw food or at least that’s what they think. Supermarkets buy strawberries grown by the same farm that produce them all year round. Meaning you can buy the same strawberry from say, ahhh we won’t mention any names, season after season and it’s the same consistent strawberry. No flaws, no difference, no nothing just the same boring berry. Can I LOL in an article? Yea i think I will LOL at anyone calling themselves a chef that cooks with seasonality when they buy berries at a supermarket or from one of those, you know restaurant suppliers. To me this is not cooking with seasonality just because you bought and used a piece of fruit that grew 5000 miles away during your areas growing season. That is just cooking... Not seasonal..To me cooking with seasonality is cooking with INDIGENOUS foods to certain areas with, certain microclimates with, certain variables within those microclimates. I think there is a crazy French word for that, oh yea terroir. That’s what makes seasonality, variables, terroir. That’s what makes good produce..

Shamefully this happens way too much with everything from produce to meat. I used the strawberry as an example because it is a fruit loved all over the world. I also used this fruit because every year in the Hudson Valley millions grow wildly. Im not talking about the berry your thinking thats almost as big as a hand fruit, I’m talking about a small berry about 1.5cm in size that packs the flavor of 100 of its frankenstein cousins. The Latin name of our shy little red friend “Fragaria Virginiana”, its growing range from Florida to the top of Quebec.

Now that you know of at least one native fruit, I urge all home cooks, outdoor lovers, hikers and chefs alike to please, really cook with seasonality. Make something with wild grown fruit, I bet even the most amateur of cooks will produce the best dish that their friends and families will ever taste.