Seasonal Eating

These days the shelves in any supermarket look the same whether it is winter or summer and this is allowed by the global marketplace. Importers and manufactures will say that in this way we help producers in other lands. However, I doubt it, and, on the other hand, it becomes a major environmental impact, because of the shipping from one end of the world to another.

It also means that by buying fruits and vegetables from distant lands, our own local producers will be ruined and many of them will have to quit their harvests to find work somewhere else.

Every season produces its own different produce. We can´t expect to get strawberries or asparagus in winter time, because this is a spring produce. If you get them at Christmas time, they will most probably have been stored. The same applies for meat, especially lamb, which best time is in or around Easter time.  

Anyone who is able to produce its own food will definitely be a free person. One may agree on this or not, but our basic needs are a roof over our heads, food and clothes, and the rest are accessories that we can go without.

I had a friend who lived in a little farm in the region of La Rioja, which is, as everybody knows, an important wine producing region. This man had, as I say, his little farmhouse, a plot where he harvested different veggies and fruit. He also reared a pig, which meant that some meat was guaranteed on the table and he also produced his own wine.

When we sat in the front of his house in a warm summery evening to enjoy the food and the wine, I used to tell him how well he lived.

This man didn´t have many of the modern gadgets, apart from a good radio set as he liked listening to it while he did something else. He had few books that he got in second hand bookshops, because he loved reading. I always thought that he portrayed the happy man  as in the story I was told when I was a school girl.  

In many European cities, they have started to harvest fruits and veggies by allowing some people to have a small plot. Actually, I have a friend who got one outside London. In this way, these people can take home what they produce.

If this project hasn´t reached your cities, I would suggest, at least, to support our local grown produce rather than buying imported food from others lands. It tastes fresher, seasonal and we help our local farmers to live

on their own work.

They say that food supplies for the world population will be a serious problem in the future. I am not sure about this statement, but if we go apart from our roots and we abandon our local food producers, it will certainly be one.