Seasonality

[pigletwillie]

I used to look forward to the first summer strawberries but now as they are flown in from all over the world all year long that pleasure has been removed even though the majority of it is unripe tasteless tat.

What has happened to eating with the seasons produce? Can we reallly not do without those winter stawberries or have our wants been hijacked by very clever marketing managers from suppermarkets.

This links in with another thread about "its not easy being Green" as eating seasonally, locally grown produce also removes food "air miles".

I look forward to hearing your views on this issue

[smallblueplanet]

Its not just seasonality though. Part of the problem of 'unseasonal food' is of course that a lot of fresh food sold by supermarkets tastes like bland nothingness, so in season or out makes no difference to the purchasers!

Don't buy strawberries no more, and try not to buy any fruit besides bananas and apples from supermarkets - its a waste of money. I hate coming home from holidays in the Med with all their gorgeous ripe fruit available to eat (even from supermarkets), back to perfectly formed tasteless 'bricks' we're expected to enjoy....

Where food and taste is concerned most younger peoples education is sadly lacking. Even some of the 'chefs' on tv don't know where their food comes from nor when it should be available (and sometimes how best to cook it!).

[Peter]

Modern commercialism

Sadly Pigletwillie, it all comes down to commercial competition taken to the nth degree.

"If we can have strawberries a month before the other supermarkets", becomes "if we can have stawberries all year round".
This then leads to ignorance amoungst the general public, who then believe that having strawberries all year round is normal.

"Our strawberrise must all look perfect" means high input, high waste cultivation with high chemical input to prevent fungal/insect/slug damage and choice of good-looking varieties at the expense of taste.

The even sadder follow-on from all this is that the fruit has to be able to survive being picked in Spain (or Kenya, or Columbia) and freighted to the UK before it even enters the Supermarket distribution cycle. So we end up with "wooden" produce that can survive all the hendling and transport.

I won't buy peaches or nectarines, why?
Because I experienced home-grown ones in my childhood. Thomas Rivers varieties grown in a huge victorian glasshouse, which would bruise if you looked at them hard. You bit them and the juice ran down your chin as the flesh melted in your mouth. My teeth get stuck in supermarket tennis balls!

A return to local seasonal produce would be wonderful, but is unlikely until fuel prices dictate it. The solution, grow your own seasonal produce.
Just wish I could be siccessful with swedes, ah well try again this year.

[Alice]

I agree that much of what is imported out of season is tastless pulp. I try to live with the rhythm of the seasons and buy locally grown stuff in season. Used to have a kitchen garden in previous house but although very large garden here no kitchen garden. All that is going to change as retired now and have time to do the job. Planning to start on it towards end of summer. Will keep you posted.

[blackkitty]

I agree completely that we have lost the idea of seasonality. I try to teach it to my classes at school and even the year 11's have no idea. Actually I find a lot of the pupils have no idea what produce is grown here, many say bananas - I think because they're relatively cheap and always available. One of my year 7 classes had to pick out the odd one from; apples, pears and peas, the answer I got was peas because they're frozen. However they can identify just about any hamburger and can tell you how much it costs as well.
Its largely because the supermarkets have taken over our shopping patterns completely.
I'm sorry Peter but fuel prices are unlikely to stop supermarkets importing produce, because of the tax structure on aviation fuel the government, and therefore us, subsidises the cost of imported foods at the expense of home grown ones. In fact if you really examine food policies a lot of 'bad' practise is actually encouraged by the EU and governement policy - don't get me started
I grow as much as I can but don't have the space or expertise to grow everything so we also get an organic box some weeks. these are great and really do reflect the seasons and also often have some different and unusual items in them.

[eskymo]

I'm not going to comment as I can rant on this subject for ever. A great book about how supermarkets are taking over the globe is:

The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets
Joanna Blythman

It's very good and I would highly recommend it. After reading it my OH and I decided to boycott supermarkets as much as possble. We now buy veg from a local smallholder and also from local fruit and veg shops and get meat from the butchers and fish from the fish van. We also regularly get bulk supplies from a food co-op a friend set up in Cupar. She calls me and lets me know when she's making an order and we get tons of organic stuff from them.

However we do get drawn to Lidl as we like it's approach.

[Peter]

Blackkitty, living as I do near Stanstead I totally agree with you about air fuel. It is a glaring anomoly in taxation that should be addressed, but don't get me started on the subject.

Eskymo, get an allotment, that should cut your food miles even more.

[pigletwillie]

Whilst I sympathise about the effects that the airport must have on your life Peter, taxing aviation fuel would take air travel out of the reach of poorer people just at a time when it has actually become affordable for them and once more make it the preserve of the rich.

Why not tax things that we can do without and which blight the environment, things like plastic carrier bags, excess packaging and plastic bottles, bring back paper bags and returnable glass bottles.

[eskymo]

The nearest allotments are in Inverkeithing and Edinburgh and I would need to drive to both...that's why I've converted half my garden into an allotment instead.

[Birdie Wife]

All good sentiments, but how do we get that across to your average punter on the street? We can all bash the supermarkets, but they wouldn't sell tasteless tat that looks so promising if people didn't still buy the stuff. Supply and demand, pure and simple, but still sad. Maybe there is more the supermarkets could do to give us an informed choice, like not making the country of origin in tiny tiny letters so you have to search all over for it, or maybe having a green sticker on the labels of produce which is in season at the time. Or is this too much to hope for?

[SueA]

Unfortunately we do buy most of our fruit & veg. from the supermarket because it is just down the road from us. I did try to support a small local greengrocery shop which was near to us but found the produce was awful, old, tasteless & expensive & it eventually closed down. We do not have any local farmers markets or farm shops but do stop at any we pass on our travels & often buy something because although expensive the quality is usually good. I grow a small amount of fruit & veg. at home but we only have a tiny garden so it only feeds us for a couple of meals a year!

[blackkitty]

this is a subject I can really get on my soapbox about but I try not to bore people too much.... Feel free to tell me to shut up
Lots of policies etc actually distort the price of food. For example the biggest benefitter from the CAP is the sugar industry which means that products made with lots of it are cheap, factory farming and intensive agriculture costs us two billion a year in clearing fertilizers and pesticides out of our water supply but that isn't added to your food at the till it comes out of taxes.
this actually distorts the cost of food so means that for many families eating junk is cheaper than proper food. Next time you're in a supermarket compare the cost of cheap biscuits and their cheapest apples...
anyway, I'll get off my soapbox for a bit

[nick the grief]

Thats very true BK.
I wonder what would happen if we all had an allotment & could grow enough food for ourselves. I know it will never happen but there you go.

Another pet hate of mine. Some years ago our local news interveiwed some people that were complaining about the cost of fruit & veg & how the governments idea about vouchers would affect them. I have to say at this point that their kid was playing some violent game on his brand new playstation & both parents were chain smoking.

I turned out that they were getting vouchers to the tune of £100 per week for veg & fruit. Thats as much as we spend on our shopping !!! I thought at the time an average allotment plot is £20 - £30 per year. & they could grow as much as they want PLUS they would get some excercise in to the bargain.

The biggest drawback with this of course would be that they would have to DO something!!

[bramble]

Pigletwillie, We here in Ireland have gone back to bringing our own shopping bags to the supermarket for our shopping. Mostly we use canvas bags although i have to say the supermarkets do still stock plastic bags for those of us who may forget our shopping bags and are sold to us for 15 cent per plastic bag. Its amazing how quickly people adapt to using their oun bags.

[pigletwillie]

Hi Bramble, we noticed that last year when in Kinsale. A good idea indeed. Paper bags would also be good as they would be recycled and can go into the compost bin unlike plastic.