Saturday, February 11, 2012

The seasons are what a symphony ought to be....


The title of this post comes from a quote by Arthur Rubenstein...he states  "The seasons are what a symphony ought to be: four perfect movements in harmony with each other". This quote highlights the topic of this post, as I want to address the issue of eating seasonally.

As I peruse through a variety of social media sites and watch commercials, I see people post, talk about, our record themselves talking about the benefits of eating organically and how much healthier they feel. You know, that's all fine and dandy, eating organically and whatever, but you know in some ways the organic food that you eat, is not exactly environmentally friendly, nor is it seasonally self-sufficient. That's why it's important to buy locally and have access to your local farmers, and even more importantly, it's important to buy seasonally so that farmers don't have to use products to keep produce growing out of season for your convenience. Seriously, there is nothing I hate more than having an out of season tomato, I think they're disgusting and purposely won't order tomatoes on sandwiches and burgers, until I know that they are locally grown and in-season...I am very picky about that and you should be too. Each season gives us great things to cook with, granted winter leaves us with boring ol' root vegetables and such, but if we try to learn about seasonal eating we can create a sustainable lifestyle that is not only good for our farmers and local economy, but healthy clean and good for us.

I just picked up a copy of Clean Food by Terry Walters and there are so many great resources as it guides us through seasonal eating and offers some great information. Something I will definitely be mentioning in future posts!

 It also makes me think that we should really start thinking about where our food is coming from and if it is organic, how much gas is it using to travel to where we purchase it? Is that really environmentally friendly? Another fact about organic foods, there is a USDA standard for organic foods in the USA, but did you know that other countries have different standards of what  qualifies as organic farming, so think about that before you purchase an organic mango, papaya, pineapple, etc from a country other than our own. Look, I'm not saying that we can't indulge in tropical fruit or out of season fruit once in a while, but the difference between a fresh in season fruit and an imported out of season fruit is remarkable...nothing beats a sweet plump blueberry, raspberry, or strawberry in the summer or a fresh picked apple in the fall, the taste is just that much better and you can feel better knowing that you picked it or if you go to the farmers market, you know that you talked to the person that picked that fruit. Then there are the vegetables...oh vegetables. Summer always seems to offer the most abundance of delicious vegetables, tomatoes (which could technically be filed in the fruit category), zucchini, beans, corn, cucumbers, summer squash, peppers, etc...then autumn comes and there is squash and the remaining and lingering vegetables of summer, the beginning of the harvesting and canning that will last you through the winter, then there's winter and we are left with root vegetables, but alas there are leafy greens and mushrooms and wild rice that we can use in a sustainable way to make a hearty winter meal, and of course winter is the perfect time to pull out those canned vegetables you delicately put together in the summer and fall, and then spring begins a new life of fruits and vegetables and flowers and happiness and the cycle begins again. Really all it takes to be sustainable is to be locally conscious and conventional, eat the way our parents, grandparents, and forefathers did, support each other, support and know your farmers and restaurants, ask where your food came from and adopt a mindset that will help you to think about the seasons, consider the environment, and give you the ability to really savor your food.              


So the next time you eat something think about how much love went into growing it, feeding it, and preparing it. How far away did it come from. Is this supporting my neighborhood. Is this from a farm and does the restaurant know where it came from. Is it in season. Lastly, you want to think about how clean it is for you & the environment, after all those questions, because even if it's organic and it traveled from California to new York, you are not eating something that really is clean and good.

So what I am saying is, try to be sustainable by eating seasonal, sure you can stray once in a while, but adopting a sustainable lifestyle where you support your local economy (local restaurants, local farmers, local breweries) will definitely be a good contribution to society and to yourself...and to those who live around you :)

Next post, I will be discussing the supper club my friends and I are starting, where we create dishes using as many local ingredients as possible and drink wine from NYS and just savor the tastiness of the delicious food we will be indulging in.