Eating Seasonally: A Personal Reflection
by David Bruce, Excerpted from "From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Cooking Farm Fresh Seasonal Produce" published by MACSAC
At one time, food production and preparation was a fundamental part of most people’s lives. Across much of the Americas, corn, beans, and squash, known as the “three sisters,” were the basis of the local diet and sound farming practices. These once sustainable and resilient systems, with their slight varietal and cultural differences, have been transformed into strip malls that
feature the same fast food restaurants found in San Salvador, Jakarta, and Moscow. Somehow I think things should be different, though it is hard to imagine how to get away from the pervasive uniformity and extensive spread of those places. But there are ways to do things differently, as the 4,000 to 5,000 Wisconsin households involved with community supported agriculture are
proving each harvest season.
Central to community supported agriculture is eating locally and seasonally. To be a CSA member is to take a revolutionary step and try changing one’s eating, which often means changing one’s lifestyle and daily practices. It means stepping out of the current food system, which is dependent on fossil fuels and the pervasive use of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers. To eat seasonally requires a heightened awareness of the natural world—a recognition of what the earth is offering for our use during the different seasons.
Seasonal eating is an extension of ideas that have been growing quietly for years. It is in concert with foodsheds—independent, self-reliant food economies. It is a conscientious objection to what we are doing to our home. It is civil disobedience against the bribe of
apparent abundance and convenience as a statement and demonstration of local environmentalism, the daily practice of bioregional living and deep ecology. It is an
attempt at harmony. I’m talking a purist walk, I know, and I’ll be the first to say I don’t yet live it totally. I’m a devoted coffee consumer, and I like to buy the little red organic bananas for my kids. Still, I hold a goal of eating primarily what is produced here, where I live, in the
Driftless region of southwest Wisconsin. And what I can’t grow here—like basmati rice or coffee beans—I’ll try to buy from organizations that return a fair price to
producers. That’s theory. In practice, I’m talking about generating new regional pride that is reflected in our foods. Different beer at every inn, changing to reflect the seasons: A bock, marzen, pale ale, bitter, oktoberfest, winterbrau, according to the appropriate grain and technique for the time of the year. Every culture has its indigenous bread, whether called a tortilla or a chapati. The different wines of the different regions of Europe reflect grapes adapted to specific areas. So many of these things are special because we cannot get them at the
Stop-N-Go. Let me put it another way. As a Wisconsin vegetable farmer, I know that by the time my melons are ripe, many people have already been eating melons grown and shipped from Mexico for a month and a half. As a result, a locally grown melon may not seem all that special,
much less command a decent price. But think about how good that melon tastes to us on the farm, after having waited all summer for it.
Our food is reflective of the seasons. In the peak of the long light, our bodies are renewed with asparagus, salads, and steamed beet thinnings. In the heat of the summer, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers cool and nourish us, replacing lost fluids and minerals. In December and January, our bodies want the warmth and energy of the stored squash and potatoes. In February and March we have such a hankering for salad that we grow lots of sprouts and eat them alone with our favorite dressing! Those who are stepping into seasonal eating by participating in a CSA deserve recognition for their extra efforts. It is revolutionary eating, refusing to be a part of the environmental degradation that characterizes the current food system. It is charitable eating, wanting those who produce your food to be earning a decent standard of living, and so loving others as yourself. It is Zen eating, requiring mindfulness, a simplifying of and a concentration on what we consume. It is environmental eating, for what better action than to provide an example to those around you on living more harmoniously in your world? With revolutionary spirit, charitable hearts, thoughtful practice, and sensitive action, we can learn to eat seasonally. As we do so, we learn about our region and, with creativity and caring responsibility to place, we can develop our own regional epicurean fare.
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David Bruce has been a longtime student of sustainable
agriculture as a university student, an employee for an
organic certification agency and an organic produce
cooperative, and as a full-time farmer at Dog Hollow Farm in
southwestern Wisconsin.