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Simply in Season CookbookRecipes Celebrating Fresh and Local Foods
Lind and Hockman-Wert assembled a treasure trove of culinary delights centered around local and seasonal foods, that goes easy on the wallet and the planet
A charmerOpen your fridge: chances are extremely high that there’s at least a tomato in there. What do you know about this piece of fruit (yes, a tomato is still a fruit)?
If you don’t know the answer to these questions, or if it is a “yes”, then Simply in Season, Recipes that celebrate fresh, local foods in the spirit of More-with-Less, is the cookbook for you. Yes, it that promotes healthy, fresh and local eating, and the main ingredients are veggies, fruits and herbs. There are some meat and carbs recipes, but no canned or processed foodstuffs. But the thing is: this book doesn’t preach. Instead, it charms with:
If the answer to the tomato-quiz is each time No, and if your tomato is actually stored on the countertop (where it belongs), then Simply in Season is also your kind of book. For all the above reasons, and because it will confirm what you know, in your gut, to be true, that eating “that does not depend on ignorance-is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world” (Wendell Berry). Food knowledgeThat one shouldn’t store tomatoes in the fridge is one of the many handy pieces of information offered in the “Fruit and Vegetable Guide,” which is extremely useful for culinary neophytes and may even surprise seasoned cooks. For each fruit, vegetable and herb, the authors offer:
Those who want to keep it simple or strike out on their own need not even leave this section of the book. But then they would miss out, and not only on the recipes… Recipes for each seasonEach season has its own color-coded section (spring to winter, and all seasons), and each recipe its page. In the margin of each page the available vegetables and fruits are listed, the ones that are used in the recipe in bold. Together with its spiral spine that makes it lie (or stand) completely flat, this kind of organization makes the book a joy to use. But which seasons, you may ask, or rather: whose seasons? It matters, since the book promotes local produce. No worries, all the key ingredients can be found locally (that is, in the ground or on the stalk), from Florida to the Yukon. The extra ingredients, like meat, fish and grains, and avocados and edamame and the like, might pose a bit more of a challenge, but might also be found in most areas. For each season, the authors have gathered recipes for every culinary moment, from Breads and Breakfast to Desserts, some Extras like salsas and dips, and for the plethora in summer there is an extra section on Canning. A “community cookbook”Simply in Season was commissioned by the Mennonite Central Committee “to promote the understanding of how the food choices we make affect our lives and the lives of those who produce the food.” Those people get to speak to us through their recipes (more than 450 contributors from around the world sent in over 1,600 recipes), and through some of the quotes that follow the recipes. This book is not for nothing one of the “World Community Cookbooks”. The real treasure lies in the extras: quotes from Wendell Berry, gentle invitations to take responsibility for one’s food through small actions, like buying at a farmer’s market, or growing some of your own food. The brief passages by the authors about the environmental impact of modern agriculture, health, time, and the economics of food, and food production and food security issues are easily taken in as the pots simmer. These make of Simply in Season an all-round cookbook that provides food for the body, for the spirit, and for thought. More information:Simply in Season is published by the Mennonite Herald Press. Sources and resources
The copyright of the article Simply in Season Cookbook in Seasonal Cooking is owned by Katrien Vander Straeten. Permission to republish Simply in Season Cookbook in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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