When did it become an inalienable human right for 65 million Britons to have a cucumber in March? When did we suddenly regard the possession, weekly, of a half kilo or so of vine-ripened tomatoes as fundamental to our very being, when our corner of the northern hemisphere is still essentially frozen and has been for months?
If we were in southern Italy or if London were transposed with Madrid – so 800 miles closer to the equator – then one might begin to think that a leafy salad or a few tomatoes could or should be a daily staple, even in these darker days. But up here, at 52 degrees north, in an archipelago off the last landmass before you have the void of the swirling Atlantic? Up here, in an archipelago that was so inhospitable that even the Romans (no slouches in their dedication to taking over the known world) decided it wasn’t worth it and simply put up a wall – a wall, furthermore, which they staffed with foreign auxiliaries while they headed off home to the enjoy the sunshine of Latium along with its olives, abundant mid-winter loose-leaf salads and flowing Frascati?
The current supermarket shortages of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and other vegetables, which Defra is blaming on ‘poor weather in Spain and North Africa where they are produced’, have caused unhappiness in the aisles, with shoppers apparently fighting over cucumbers and complaining that they can’t get their favourite salad items. But surely we have to face the facts? Surely we have to look at the gaping empty shelves of our supermarkets and take the hint? That’s right. Perish the perishables. Maybe we shouldn’t be eating vine tomatoes and cucumbers in the middle our winter after all.
Perhaps we should be looking to our own seasonal bounty for our culinary inspiration, rather than insisting on eating the same tedious combination of foods for 12 months of the year
Perhaps instead we should be looking to our own seasonal bounty for our culinary inspiration, rather than simply insisting on eating the same tedious combination of foods that we (ordinarily) have all year round.
If we did then you would find no shortage of excellent options. For example, if you need red food, you could look no further than the fine beetroot, which is abundant right now, and perfect for roasting, baking, boiling or pickling (and curries too). It’s so good – and good for you – that we ignore this chap at our peril. Then there’s the criminally overlooked turnip (the thinking man’s potato), and there’s leeks – the reason God invented roast chicken, and full of flavonoids. There’s kale – the king of brassicas, and a martyr to a million smoothies, where its fine flavour is often wasted. Then there’s purple sprouting broccoli – the superfood’s superfood, the primus inter pares of cruciferous vegetables which is so packed with antioxidants and other goodies that it should be prescribed on the NHS. Oh yes, there’s cauliflower, too, positively leaping out of the ground, and appealing to you to bathe it in cheese sauce.
And that’s not all. There’s parsnips – the more discerning cousin of the carrot, which is also in season and begging to be blended with coriander and lashings of cream, or roasted in butter. There’s also winter cabbages, spinach, spring greens, wild garlic… and then there’s radishes. The peerless radish – snip off its head, dip it in salt and feast. If it’s good enough for Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny, it’s good enough for me.
Most importantly, all of this is leaping out of the soil around us – not 1,000 or 5,000 miles away and here courtesy of an aeroplane’s hold or the wizardry of modern science that could make a Pink Lady endure a nuclear winter without a single wrinkle.
There is simply so much sprouting out there right now that you’d be a fool, frankly, to overlook it. OK, so our seasonal vegetables do not come in eye-catching Picasso hues; OK, they require peeling or cleaning or other preparations before being cooked imaginatively. And I’ll admit many of our wintry vegetables don’t automatically lend themselves to sitting inside a sandwich. But that doesn’t mean we should overlook them – and just imagine how much better salad stuffs would taste if you waited for summer?
So I urge you. Put down that jetlagged Peruvian tomato, which tastes like water you wouldn’t drink in a backpacker’s hostel and has travelled thousands of miles to provide an ultimately disappointing culinary experience. Step away from the Moroccan cucumber. Make a positive change. Give up on expensive mid-winter salad stuff. Get a bit Brexity in the kitchen and embrace the best of nativism in the larder. Do this, and, what’s more, you’ll be slashing your food miles and helping to break our bad and lazy dependence on imported winter foods that we probably never needed in the first place. Don’t forget, home-grown cabbages, broccoli and leeks aren’t just green, they’re green!
Of course, if you can’t do without the watery tomato for the entire winter – if that’s all a bit too full-on Fanny Craddock for your liking – then you can compromise. Just cut down a bit – have a couple of days clear each week. Or perhaps the next time someone asks you what you’re giving up for Lent, instead of saying chocolate or wine, you can tell them you’ve given up unseasonal lettuce, cucumbers or tomatoes. In long run it’ll probably do you, and the planet, more good.
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