What’s in season now: why seasonal food tastes better and how to follow the calendar

A tomato in August and a tomato in February are sold under the same name and are barely the same food. Most of us know this from experience and still shop from habit, because nobody remembers the calendar of forty vegetables. This is a short guide to why season matters, and how to follow it without memorising anything.

Why seasonal produce tastes better

Fruit and vegetables picked for a long journey are picked early, while they are firm enough to travel. Sugars and aroma develop late, on the plant; a fruit harvested before that point can soften and change colour on the way, but it cannot catch up on flavour. Produce in its local season travels a shorter road, so it can be picked closer to ripe.

Variety matters too. Out of season, shops stock the varieties that survive storage and transport. In season, there is room for the ones that were bred to taste of something.

Is it more nutritious?

Sometimes, modestly. Some vitamins — vitamin C is the best-known example — decline during storage, so a vegetable eaten days after harvest can carry more of them than one that spent weeks in transit. But the difference is smaller than the headlines suggest, and it cuts both ways: vegetables frozen soon after harvest often keep their nutrients better than “fresh” ones that travelled for a fortnight.

The honest summary: eat seasonally for taste and price first. Nutrition is a small bonus, not the reason.

It is usually cheaper

When a crop is at its peak there is simply a lot of it, and the price falls. The same strawberries that are a luxury in winter are sold by the crate in June. A rough rule: if something is suddenly everywhere and cheap, it is in season.

How to tell what is in season where you live

• Seasons are local. Asparagus peaks in April in one country and in October in another. A calendar written for somebody else’s climate is worse than none.
• Look at the market, not the supermarket. Markets sell what was harvested nearby this week. Supermarkets sell everything all year.
• Learn one thing at a time. You do not need the whole calendar. Knowing what is at its peak this week is enough to change what you buy.
• Peak is shorter than season. Most produce is available for months and at its best for a few weeks. The peak is what you are looking for.

You do not have to eat seasonally all the time. Once a week, buy the one thing that is at its best right now.

How foodoo helps

foodoo has channels — something short to read about food every day. One of them is “In season now”. It is written for your country, taken from your phone’s region, with no location asked. Each post is one thing that is good right now: where it is in its season, a twelve-month calendar showing its peak, and what it pairs well with.

The other channels are in the same spirit: Kitchen craft (one technique, in steps), A word about food (where the names of dishes come from) and Dishes of the world. None of them is about calories or diets. And when you log the seasonal thing you bought, foodoo counts it towards your plants for the week.