Seasonal Eating

I've been wanting to write about seasonal foods for awhile, and now that it is autumn it seems like the perfect time. I love fall foods!

As a pagan, I feel that it is important to stay connected to the cycle of the seasons, the rhythm of the earth. One way of doing that is to try to eat seasonal, locally grown food. This isn't to say that I don't eat food shipped in from California, Mexico, and other locations far sunnier than my own (if I didn't, I'd probably starve to death in the winter. I admire the perseverance of the early settlers, but sometimes wonder why they didn't go farther south!). But I do try to eat locally whenever possible, and from late spring through the fall I can say that I almost all of the produce I eat is locally grown, and thus seasonally appropriate. I also try to can as much of the harvest as I can. This year we put up several jars of tomatoes, prepared enough sundried tomatoes to last the next year, and froze pesto.

I am lucky to be able to do this. I have the disposable income to spend on slightly more expensive produce, and I live in an area with an abundance of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA's), which are farms from which you buy a share up front. Every week I get my share of fresh produce grown only a few miles from my home. It's hard to get more local than that! Sometimes, eating locally can be rather frustrating, for instance in the beginning of the season when you seem to be swimming in a sea of greens. Other times it has been rather illuminating, as when I received a watermelon in early September. Who knew that was when they actually ripened around here? But most of the time, it's simply delicious.

On one level, some foods just don't taste right when they're flown across the country. Have you ever eaten asparagus that's traveled across a continent? It's disgusting. And strawberries in February may be tempting, but they often have the flavor of moist cardboard (a fact which genuinely saddens me, as they have such a short growing season!)

Sometimes, when I get too busy and too distracted to even notice what is going on outside my window, it is my food that lets me know what season it really is. Earlier today I was wondering why it felt like autumn was only just starting, when we've already run through all of September. Then it hit me; we've only started getting winter squash two or three weeks ago. It didn't feel like autumn yet because it *wasn't* autumn yet. It was only the calendar making me think it was!

It's particularly nice to eat locally and seasonally around the sabbats. For Mabon this year I had a delicious delicotta squash (from our CSA!) stuffed with wild rice and a rich creamy sauce flavored with nutmeg. Magnificent! I find Samhain to be more difficult, as a vegetarian. The season really demands mat, in keeping with the themes of death. Last year I made due with fake sausages and apples (the apples were local, at least!), and likely will do so again this year.

As I said above, I know that I am privileged to be able to follow the wheel of the year in my food choices. With luck, the world will start to change soon, and more people will be able to afford to do so.