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Seasonality. Something we’ve gotten away from in our country and in popular culture is the concept of seasonality. Certain things grow at a certain time of year, and I believe that we would be better off in many respects if food items weren’t available constantly to us, but only when they grow. There’s an ingrained sense of reward through deprivation that occurs when we only allow ourselves certain items at the time of year when they’re available.

Most of us are familiar with the concept of seasonality within our lives, but many times it’s not directly related to what we eat. Some of us spend the spring and summer months waiting for football season to begin. For others, it may be a festival of one kind or another that consistently occurs at the same point in the calendar year.

I was had a recent conversation about this with perhaps my most avid morel mushroom-hunting friend. In explaining the concept to him, I said, “imagine getting as excited about most of the food you eat as you do about when mushroom season comes around.” The familiar grin which accompanies thoughts of morels spread across his face. “That’d be awesome.” He said.

Granted, the element of “the hunt” isn’t as present with asparagus or, say, tomatoes as it is with the venerable morel, but the anticipation can be quite similar.

Although I’m not a die-hard seasonal eater, I do what I can to avoid heinous examples of out of season produce. Corn on the cob in January is a heinous example. By waiting until mid to late summer to get into some awesome local sweet corn, I’m doing a number of things: Firstly, the corn is probably going to taste way better because I haven’t had any sweet corn on the cob in almost a year. Secondly, it’s going to taste way better because it’s in season locally, which brings me to my third, and maybe my most important point- It will be locally grown. When food is set on the shelves of our local groceries out of season, it has more than probably crossed several state (and sometimes international) lines in the back of a semi truck or on a plane, or boat, or whatever. I don’t know where it’s been, and neither do you, but it’s probably got more miles on it than the tires on your bicycle, which contributes to huge, huge fuel consumption.

Let's not overlook the fact that time generally has a negative effect on nutrition and taste. The longer that produce spends on the way to the store, the worse it's probably going to taste, and keep in mind too that many of the usual store-offered varieties of produce are bred for road-worthiness, which is often at the sacrifice of nutritional content.

Not sure what’s in season? Go to the farmer’s market. Intimidated by what’s there? Just buy it and act like you know how to prepare it and then look on the internet when you get home.

Craving produce you don’t see at the market?

Good. You have something to look forward to now.

That’s seasonality.