Eating in time.

I like eating seasonal and local produce. I think the food tastes better, because it was picked ripe and didn’t take a long time to get to me. Fruits and vegetables are cheap in season. I enjoy the process of going to Farmer’s Market and chatting up the vendors. But more than all of that, I enjoy the way my food changes throughout the year.

Maybe this is an artifact of having eaten seasonally for years, but I now find that my tastes in food, without my conscious guidance, match what is available to me. In the heat of summer, the cool lightness of a tomato cucumber salad is all I want. It won’t keep me warm in the fall, though, so just when tomato-based meals start seem frivolous and inadequate, squashes and root vegetables show up to be roasted. In spring, just when I want to taste something fresh and green, asparagus and peas taste like new growth.

Eating seasonally doesn’t feel like deprivation. Food out of season has a dissonance now; eggplants aren’t hearty enough for January; beets too dense for July. The fact that some foods are ephemeral is excuse enough to indulge; better get another flat of berries while they last. If you believe in the Paradox of Choice, as a seasonal eater I’m experiencing a slowly rotating series of constrained choices, which adds variety over time and keeps me happy throughout the year.

There are times when following the seasons takes dedication. There is very little fruit available after the citrus finishes in April and before the stone fruit show up in June. Eating seasonally drags in February. But just when I think that I have had it with root crops, brassicas and leafy greens, the first asparagus shows up. If I really wanted to, I could always go to the hippy co-op and pay a lot of money to get an organically grown cucumber from somewhere. Still, each year, I haven’t wanted something out of season enough to do that.

Eating with the seasons makes me aware that time is a cycle; the first borscht, first apricot, first grilled zucchini, last tomato are all markers that remind me of the same times every year. There are small, melancholic markers that time is passing, like the end of peaches. I can always look forward to something I love, persimmons or pears, about to return. It is specific to the place I love and belong to. It is an attentive, gentle way to be connected to the earth. It makes my life richer.