[Announce] Eating with the season

[Robert Waldrop]

  One of essential aspects of household
sustainability is learning to eat with the season.
It is also one of the hardest, given the way our
just-in-time agribidness system tempts us with out
of season foods.  Thus, this new cookbook, from
the Mennonite Central Committee, on eating with
the season, is an important contribution to
"kitchen permaculture".

We who are concerned about social justice must
come to understand that how we spend our food
dollars has major impacts on social justice.
THose bright salad greens, sold in our grocery
stores in January, while there is snow on the
ground outside, were likely literally snatched
from the hands of hungry children.  If not, then
they were grown on giant agribidness plantations,
drenched with chemical pesticides and herbicides,
and they come to your table courtesy of the
ability of US corporations to exploit the
desperately poor for labor.  I don't know about
you, but I just can't eat that kind of food.  "You
are what you eat", and if the food you eat is the
product of oppression and environmental
degradation, what does that say about you?

If you are new to the concept of the seasonal
eating of local foods, then this cookbook would be
a good place to start.

Robert Waldrop
www.oklahomafood.coop
www.bettertimesinfo.org

Simply in Season, A World Community Cookbook
Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert

Website:  http://www.worldcommunitycookbook.org/

Info from Amazon:

# Spiral-bound: 352 pages
# Publisher: Herald Press (PA); Spiral edition
(June 17,
2005)
# Language: English
# ISBN: 0836192974

Amazon price for the spiral-bound edition:  $13.59
Amazon price for the paperback edition:  $11.19
(I'd recommend the spiral bound edition, which has
heavy
plastic covers.)

'Simply in Season' is the third 'World Community
Cookbook'
produced by the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC).
The
others were 'The More-with-Less Cookbook'
(emphasis on
economical recipes) and 'Extending the Table'
(recipes from
around the world).

'Simply in Season', as you will guess from the
title, is
wholly about cooking and eating seasonal - and
therefore at
least potentially local - foods.

After an initial 'Fruit and Vegetable Guide', the
book is
arranged by season, and each season has recipes
for:

Breads and Breakfast
Soups
Salads
Sides
Main Dishes
Desserts
Extras

After the spring, summer, autumn and winter
sections,
there's an 'all seasons' section with some useful
all-year
recipes (pie crusts and the like).

This is not a vegetarian cookbook as it includes
seasonal
meat (lamb in spring) and other meats, but many of
the
recipes do not call for meat.

Basically, it's how to use the fruits of your
garden or
other local and seasonal foods (maybe bought from
a
farmstand, farmers market, or CSA).  It's the best
cookbook
of this type that I have ever read - and they've
got the
seasons right.  I hate it when I read an
ostensibly seasonal
recipe that includes, for example, fresh peas plus
fresh
tomatoes.  At least in my neck of the woods, the
two are
definitely not happening at once.  But 'Simply in
Season' is
actually accurate about what foods are in season
when.

The recipes emphasize healthful cooking and
healthful foods.
Recipes were sent in by contributors, then each
recipe was
tested at least two (and usually more) times by
testers.
The authors spent nearly two years collecting 1600
recipes
from more than 450 contributors, then winnowed the
recipes
down to the best 307 - and those are included in
this
cookbook.  Contributor(s) for each recipe are
identified by
name and location.

'Simply in Season' is particularly strong in
having recipes
for unusual seasonal foods:  ground cherries,
persimmons,
rhubarb, and the like.  Lots of zucchini recipes,
of course.
The recipes almost all sound VERY good to me, and
the level
of difficulty is about right:  I'm not willing to
spend an
awful lot of time cooking these days.  Many of the
recipes
enable you to make the main dish from/with your
garden's
bounty - this is always helpful to me.  And it has
some
splendid sounding desserts too!

Like the preceding two cookbooks from MCC, the
book also
includes little homilies and 'stories' which - in
this case
- are mainly about the virtues of growing and
eating local
food.  A few of the 'stories' are explicitly
'religious', but the majority are not.  If you
object to
anything even vaguely spiritual, this may not be
the
cookbook for you, although really:  you could just
ignore
those parts.  For myself, I'm glad to see anything
published
that may help to inform people about the reasons
to support
local farmers and sustainable farming.  Eat local
food,
change the world!

I recommend 'Simply in Season' most highly -
especially to
gardeners, but also to everyone who wants good,
healthy, and
delicious food.

Oh yes, one last point:  see page 153 for an
excellent
dessert recipe...

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-- northern Pennsylvania