confusion about eating seasonally

I went to the farmer's market on Thursday with a list of several vegetables that I needed for a recipe. I know, this is exactly what I said not to do in an earlier post: don't have an agenda when you go to the farmer's market- just let the food speak to you. Well, as with most things in life, this is easier said than done (although I commend Alice Waters for working in that way.)

In my defense, the recipe I had in mind was chicken pot pie, which I consider to be an appropriate seasonal dish in late autumn. I was sure that I'd have no problem finding the vegetables I was after: celeriac (aka celery root), parsnips, and sweet potatoes. These are all root vegetables, and to my thinking, root vegetables are ripe in the late autumn and winter months.

You can imagine my surprise when, instead of finding the root vegetables I desired, I instead encountered fresh, beautiful strawberries. In November! How could this be? I grew up in Virginia, where strawberries have a very definite 4-6 week season, usually lasting from early June to mid-July. I imagined these were hydroponic strawberries (if such a thing exists), or that the wool was being pulled over my eyes in some fashion. First, I tasted a strawberry. Delicious! The very essence of a fruit at the height of its season. So I asked the farmer, (a gentleman from Lucero Organic Farms in Lodi), "How is it that you have fresh strawberries in November?" He told me that in the Central Valley, the strawberry season typically lasts from March through December, or until "the first really bad weather." Amazing!

Knowing which fruits and vegetables are in season is undeniably challenging in 21st century America, when our grocery stores stock the same produce year-round, often failing to mention the geographical origin of that produce. Our best strategy, then, is to have a general sense of what should be in season at what time of year, and then seek information that confirms the produce was not shipped from across the globe. Right now, for instance, the heirloom tomatoes at the Berkeley farmer's market are still seasonal and locally grown, as hard as it is for me to believe that a tomato can be fresh and ripe in November. At my Safeway, on the other hand, the only heirloom tomatoes to be found have two critical pieces of information on the label: "Emeril's" and "Mexico." The first piece tells me that these tomatoes are caught in a large corporate supply chain, which at some point included allowing Emeril Lagasse to brand its tomatoes. The second tells me that those particular tomatoes are neither local nor seasonal in Northern California.

(As a quick aside: in researching the origin of the Emeril's heirloom tomatoes, I couldn't find anything on Emeril's website. I did learn, however, that Emeril was the first celebrity chef to have his food consumed in space. I guess he's not too concerned about the local foods movement!)

In a future post I plan to give a "seasonality chart" of fruits and vegetables in North America, to be used only as a rough guide. The best guide, of course, is the farmers and growers from your region.

P.S. I found the sweet potato at the farmer's market, and I ended up substituting turnips for parsnips. I found some California-grown celeriac at the Berkeley Bowl, but I'm still not sure why none of the growers at the farmer's market had any to sell me. Oh well.