Best of the season - what must you have fresh and in season?

I've seen a few threads lately that led to me to attempt this thread.

There was a post about Morel mushrooms, and May is the month to harvest these where I live. (if I could find some)


I've made a couple of posts about waiting for fresh local Asparagus.

I noticed BruceRed posting corn on the cob done on his ceramic bbq . . . fresh local here will be out late July.

Peach festivals happen late August . . . think of grilled peaches with a bit of blue cheese.

Fall . . . chestnuts.


To inspire all of us this thread is meant to discuss the things you crave and wait for that are best "in-season".

Fiddle heads!!!!! They are actually a fern but you pick them before they unroll. Some salt and vinegar make a great meal. Sort of like dandelion greens.

I'm with ya..... I'm lucky to have someone who hunts Morels and will sell them to me. Be great if I could hunt my own but lack of time and where to go are a deal breaker. My dad probably finds 20-30+ pounds of Asparagus every year just growing wild in the ditches, and luckily they share. Fresh sweet corn here in the Midwest is another thing I look forward to and usually cut a bunch off the cob and freeze up to a half dozen bags for use through the rest of the year. For you Edamome eaters, i've even ventured out into the soybean fields to snag some pods, steamed them up and just like the restaurants But need to get them at the right time, not too early or too late.

imatabor said:

Fiddle heads!!!!!

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AGREE! Don't know if they grow around here but went to a nice restaurant last year for our anniversary and one of the veggies served was was Fiddle Heads. They were great. If you get them easily in the wild i'm jealous.

10 yards from my front door!! Be jealous

Southern peaches. Cool, crisp, refreshing.

A good tomato is hard to find. Homegrown is really the only way. I have to resort to canned to get any type of flavor in a dish. When I was a kid our supermarket had really great tomatoes. What happened?

DoctorShavegood said:

A good tomato is hard to find. Homegrown is really the only way. I have to resort to canned to get any type of flavor in a dish. When I was a kid our supermarket had really great tomatoes. What happened?

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hydroponic? They get every thing they need to grow big quick, but the flavour is left lacking.

Wal-mart happened

BSAGuy said:

Southern peaches. Cool, crisp, refreshing.

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I was never a big peach fan. That is until a friend brought me a bushel of peaches from Georgia about 8 years ago (He travels down from Maine every year just to buy peaches) Oh my!!! I have never had something so sweat and juicy! These things are heaven with a pit. Will never eat one from the grocery store again.

imatabor said:

I was never a big peach fan. That is until a friend brought me a bushel of peaches from Georgia about 8 years ago (He travels down from Maine every year just to buy peaches) Oh my!!! I have never had something so sweat and juicy! These things are heaven with a pit. Will never eat one from the grocery store again.

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I am the same with Oranges and Lemons. Never really fussed about them until I picked some fresh ones on holiday in Crete, near Greece. The oranges have such a fantastic juicy flavour bursting out and the lemons are 10x more lemony than our shop bought ones in the UK. Somewhere I have a video clip of where I convinced my two young daughters that the lemons were really sweet as sugar and watched them take a big bite each. Good days.

Ranier cherries. I absolutely love them and I wait impatiently for them to start showing up in stores every year.

I'm very jealous of you folks who are living right at the source, i.e. Georgia for peaches or Florida for oranges. Must be great being right there when these gems can be had straight off the tree. Farmer's markets must be a great time there and I'd probably each so much I'd get sick.

Don

It's almost time for purple hulls!



Growing up in deep East Texas, one of our favorite summer meals was a pot of purple hulls, cornbread, sliced tomato, and green onions - all from the garden. Sometimes you would have fried okra with it - which is divine.

I have many fond memories of the whole family - all five of us - shelling purple hulls by the bushel into every large bowl, pot, or colander we had in the kitchen. When I was younger she would can them. Later we go a chest freezer and she would just freeze them instead.

Some of my other local seasonal favorites:
July will be Parker County peaches (from just west of Fort Worth).
August is Hatch green chiles (my folks live in New Mexico). They also have cherries in June.
May is also Noonday onions in East Texas. I'm going to pick some up on my way to the the MiL's house this weekend.

Pineapples, melons, mangoes and soursop when in Costa Rica

Tomatoes still warm from the garden.
Fresh local strawberries

Clams right off the boat. Dump 'em onto a hot grill and let 'em go till they open. Toss with garlic butter and eat. (not so much seasonal, but a great summertime addition to a BBQ.)

Apples!! We have a bunch of orchards around here and I always look forward to the Honeycrisps! I also look forward to mango season. I imagine they are like the peaches mentioned earlier. They are good from the grocery store because that's the only way I can get them, but if I ever had a fresh one I'd never eat from a store again.

In case you're ever wondering what produce is in season in Louisiana.

http://southsideproducemarket.com/chart_seasonal.php

jzuzphreek said:

In case you're ever wondering what produce is in season in Louisiana.

http://southsideproducemarket.com/chart_seasonal.php

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Nice chart...I like charts.

For me, it's Ramps and Copper River Salmon.
Both are pretty much inaccessible to me now =\

At different times of the year...
Asparagus
Tomatoes
Corn
Porcini mushrooms
Truffles
Stone Fruit
Berries
Apples