The seasonal divide

"I momentarily forgot that not all Spring celebrations are about Easter, that, for many, Easter isn’t a thing at all, and that not all Easters are the same." Yotam Ottolenghi

I don't know whether Yotam Ottolenghi is going through some sort of mid-life crisis, but his newsletters seem to have becom a little bit more personal, more reflective of late. Although maybe this is just my interpretation.

If you are an Ottolenghi fan I do recommend subscribing to his newsletter by the way. I only subscribe to the free version which gets me one free recipe and some blurb, but you can pay and get more recipes I think.

This week the drift of the blurb was how the focus on seasonality - so very fashionable - and yes we should all cook seasonally - meant, that vast parts of the world were not aligned with Ottolenghi in London, or Adam Liaw, for example, in Australia. I remember learning in geography classes at school, about the main climates of the world, and there were at least half a dozen. If pressed I could trot them all off, but I won't bore you. Plus all the micro-climates, that I now know exist within those major ones. It's much more complicated than the north/south divide that Ottolenghi was tackling in his newsletter:

"It made me want to dedicate a whole piece to this paradoxical state I am in: writing from a very specific place to an audience that can be anywhere, really; imagining, for once, that I have one foot in each hemisphere, simultaneously."

Hence the two recipes shown above that he featured in his newsletter: Asparagus with romescu for the Brits - and Red lentil dal with butternut squash for the Southern hemisphere - Australia got a specific mention:

"Lentils have a comforting presence in cooler months (though I realise it's warmer in Australia and New Zealand at the moment than it is here…)."

It's not just the hemispheres though is it? Each hemisphere has a variety of different climates, a number of different geologies and therefore vegetation, not to mention a vast number of different cultures.

A quick aside, if you are interested in the recipes - the asparagus one had an earlier iteration in his Nopi cookbook as Grilled asparagus with romescu sauce and apple balsamic courtesy of the Chez Mary B website.

It doesn't really matter of course, that the British and Americans on their various websites are now writing about spring vegetables and dishes. It's just a tiny bit frustrating for me. It does bug me marginally, however, when I read my newsletters. Particularly if I see an appealing recipe for asparagus say - which now comes from Mexico. Our season finished long ago now.

But, yes, it doesn't really matter.

Firstly because these days we can more or less get any ingredient we want at any time of the year. There are very few, if any ingredients that we cannot get at any time, although we shall have to pay more for them and they won't be as good. They are either flown in from elsewhere or frozen. And here in Australia we have even more choice, as our continent/country itself covers a very wide range of climate types and therefore some things, depending on where they are grown, are available, fresh from the farm to your local supermarket or greengrocer, all year round. Tomatoes, for example, depending on the time of year, will come from different areas of Australia. Constant availability also applies to other countries where vegetables and fruit are grown inside massive, for want of a better word, greenhouses.

Secondly we don't have to rely on sources such as internet newsletters and local magazines for recipes. Even if they are talking about seasonal ingredients, there are millions of recipes online, and sitting in the cookbooks on our shelves. Or, of course, we can just wing it and make something up with what we have.

There are so many reasons however, aren't there, for what we might choose to cook for dinner? And seasonality is only one of the things we need to consider. Ottolenghi himself, in that same introductory piece this week says:

"As a recipe writer, I often create dishes in a sort of season-agnostic vacuum. But as a home cook, like so many of you, I am rooted in the moment - in weather, in light, in what I am craving when I get home."

Today, for example. It's autumn. But it's a beautiful blue sky day. No mist and dampt to be seen. Dry because it hasn't really rained for weeks -mostly there is no grass to be seen. And it's warm - in English terms anyway - mid 20s. The latest Coles magazine, was promoting apples and pears as its seasonal pick, but it was, of course, largely about Easter food. Autumn and Spring - much the same weatherwise here and in the northern temperate climes. I am, of course, talking about Melbourne - not our other climactic zones. And so we too can go for roast (or barbecued) lamb and hot cross buns without it feeling too strange. Easter food in modern Australia has not diverged from its European roots, as Christmas has - where there is much more of a contrast. Christmas, indeed, is all wrong, here in Australia, in so many ways.

Seasonality, however, has little part to play in my choice of dinner for tonight. It's more about what I have to use up from Easter - and today it's chicken, the carrot salad and a potato gratin, all of which I think will be recombined somehow into another, layered gratin - with a light touch from the chicken and the carrots. I suppose if it was a colder and damper kind of day I may have veered more towards a pie, or perhaps, a curry.

Last week I bought myself some bargain books from my favourite bookstore, one of which, was Diana Henry's Roast figs, sugar snow, which is all about winter food. Such a beautiful cover don't you think? She, and Nigel Slater, who writes an introduction to this revised edition, both rhapsodise about the joys of winter food. It's a very seasonal book, and there are lots of tempting recipes within. I shall be writing more about it but today I mention it because it was another reminder of the notion of eating seasonally and how elastic a concept that has become, mostly because of the globalisation of food in every conceivable way.

But yes, really it all comes down to how you feel on the day, what the weather's like and what you have in the fridge, or the pantry. Although yes, the advice would still be to buy seasonally. It's cheaper and it's better quality, and it marks the passing of time, the slow dance of the earth circling the sun.

YEARS GONE BY

April 23

2024 - Nothing

2023 - Nothing

2022 - Scary carbonara

2021 - Nothing

2020 - Deleted

2019 - The King Valley

2018 - Green

2017 - Grossi Florentino Grill on a sunny afternoon