Here in the Northern Hemisphere we are celebrating the arrival of spring. Temperatures are rising and there is a general air of “Happy” around everyone. When it comes to food spring really is my favorite season. It even gives autumn a good run for all its variety. Probably because after bleak and somber winters, there is so much freshness around at this time of year that it is hard not to cave into the abundance and variety available at the markets.

We had some pretty high temperatures last week. Soaring up to 20C in mid-March is not very common but it did give the earth and the trees a big bloom. The weekend was a rainy one, which will result in green hills, wildflowers and a good kick-start for the farmers and their crops. The markets and the grocery stores have already started to stock up on some of my favorite spring produce.

“Eat seasonally!” is the loud cry from all of us food conscious folk! While a few years ago I was very conscious about buying organic produce only, it has over the years, given way to produce that is available locally, regionally – yes of course, but now my food choices are impacted by the sustainability of the food I buy.

Over the past years I have often found myself asking:

“When did buying food and produce become this complicated?”

Take Braeburn apples for example: they are in season from around October to April so right now you are sure to find them in abundance in your stores and if you live in a region where these are grown you’ll also have the benefit of sourcing them regionally like I do. The region of Germany I live in is quite fertile and we have a lot of apples. What I see however is that I can get my Braeburn apples, almost all year long. How can that be? Well after a little research I found out that farmers actually store large amounts of the apples in storage houses for up to eight months and the apples we are getting might not be those “fresh-off-the-tree” apples from this season but the ones that have been stored over the past several months. They are still fresh and taste absolutely perfect but it is not the picture we have in our heads of seasonal eating and of apples being plucked straight off the tree and into the market.

I just finished reading Jay Rayner’s “A Greedy Man in a Hungry World” and I still have to digest a lot of what he discusses, however I was quite engrossed to read that in the UK the same practice is applied by apple farmers there. This book has given me a lot to think about and as I take in all the aspects and topics he dives into, it will develop my perspective further on what I have always thought I was doing good with the food choices I make. I did not always agree with him but he presents well-balanced arguments and lays out facts for the reader to deduce for themselves and has certainly given me food for thought Bordeaux.

In our changing and growing world Rayner presents several controversial topics in the book, such as the positive side of genetically modified foods, the advantages of big agriculture, eating less meat, thinking on a wider scale due to the growing world population, and that sometimes it is more sustainable to get certain food items from far away countries because their natural environment allows them to grow better than in our own and trying to produce them here would mean leaving a much larger carbon footprint than having it shipped from that far away country. Rayner also unmistakably comments that “being obsessive about seasonality and perving over top-quality ingredients” is not as important nor is it the same as supporting sustainable agriculture Flower delivery service.

Getting back to the topic of seasonality, I am not a radical food guerilla and although I carefully watch what is in season, I will also buy certain produce that is not – like the Braeburn apples in September. Produce like asparagus, rhubarb or strawberries that would not be sustainable to grow in any other season but in its own would not be put into my shopping cart for my home kitchen. Sustainability is the bigger picture and seasonality often means the pure excitement and joy of seeing the slender long green stems of the first green asparagus or the long stubby ruby red stalks of new rhubarb in the stores. Maybe Rayner will be rolling his eyes at my “perving” over these items but I will allow my occasional obsession and surrender to seasonal spring produce.

In my last post I discussed the food trends of 2014 and asked my friends and readers on Twitter and Facebook for their suggestions. Many mentioned grow-your own (Rayner dedicates a whole chapter for this) and seasonality as trends for this year. So this week I connected with my Facebook and Twitter friends again and asked them what their top 3 seasonal springs produce / food is. Here is what they said property hk: