...does what it says on the tin. What's in season when, then? : comments.
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![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
I really don't think anybody ever gave me a conscious incentive to remember that cherry blossom came out in spring and turned into cherries in the summer/autumn. It's not some kind of arcane witchy pagan knowledge or nerdy memorising of dates and numbers. It's just walking around with my eyes open.
I wonder if this is an age thing. When I was a kid you didn't get "summer fruits" all year round, honestly, that's why they were called "summer fruits", because they happened in, duh, summer. And no, I don't know exactly what day summer begins on, and exactly what time it ends at, because it doesn't work like that. Am I really that old?
Ducks, um, well, I assumed the question was talking about duck which was (to some extent) wild, rather than e.g. battery-farmed. Wild birds don't just get born and die at any time of the year. You know... nests? eggs? spring? not-having-any-food-in-winter?
... I feel like some kind of weird relic of an imaginary Enid Blyton 1950s. :-(
(no subject)
Yeah, I guess, or foreign gooseberries, or something (you know. They might be "in season" in ... er... abroad. Australia! Do gooseberries even grown in Australia? I know nothing. in February, right?).
"I don't know exactly what day summer begins on, and exactly what time it ends at"
When I was a kid, I'm sure summer started on the last day of the summer term ... :)
(no subject)
Ngghh. Yes! Precisely! Part of the point of wanting to know when things are in season here is to reduce food miles, ie buy stuff that's grown locally instead of stuff that's been flown in from abroad!
("I think we're encountering the middle of this conversation.")
(no subject)
mind you I'd also assume, possibly erroneously, that things could be grown out of season "locally" in some kind of greenhousery thing.
(no subject)
Anyway, originally, I said, "So if you see them in Tesco as 'in season' in February, you suspect you're being sold a pup", and you said, "Yeah, I guess, or foreign gooseberries, or something". Yes, obviously, I do look at the country-of-origin information if I'm buying from somewhere that provides that information, that's not the point. If you know that fruit ripens in summer/autumn then you don't need to look at the country of origin to know that raspberries aren't going to have grown normally, in this country, in February.
Of course, if you can label anything as "in season" on the grounds that it's in season somewhere, or it's in season in a greenhouse, it rather devalues the words "in season", but hey, now I know I'm weird for having noticed summer and remembered that it's different from winter, I'm happy to accept that I'm weird for remembering that words used to have meanings as well.
(no subject)
Interesting about this food miles issue, and yes I agree in principle that the less food miles we all use on average the better - but what about non-food miles, is *everything* you buy local? - and how much stuff that isn't food do you actually buy? (In my case, the answer is frankly not a lot, and not buying much is green in itself).
(no subject)
Almost certainly not. Unfortunately I know that round here (Cambridge, LiveJournal) it's considered worse to try to improve your environmental impact in some areas, bit by bit, than just to do nothing.
I confess, I bought some ibuprofen yesterday: I have no idea where the tablets are made, where the plastic blister-packs are made (and it's plastic therefore it's evil anyway), where the cardboard is made. I suspect I should have just drank some home-brewed gin to dull the pain, or just accepted that pain is part of life.
- and how much stuff that isn't food do you actually buy?
Not that much, really. And nearly all the unnecessary stuff I buy (books, clothes, music etc) I get second-hand from charity shops. That's fairly local and fairly green. I do buy toiletries -- toothpaste, shampoo, soap etc -- which is probably unforgivable when I could make them all at home; but working full time doesn't leave me with as much time as I'd like to do that sort of thing. On the other hand, since I work with computers, there's probably no way I can offset that evil, & I should probably just give up the job and become a self-sufficient farmer or a Buddhist monk or something.
Are you interrogating everybody in this way, out of interest, or have you just picked on me for daring to have an opinion?
(no subject)
I'm not aiming to pass judgement at all, just to point out that someone who doesn't fall over backwards to care hugely about the precise seasonality of, mostly, luxury items isn't necessarily one of these people who couldn't care less and is massively damaging the planet due to their food shopping habits, which is what I felt you were saying with some of your previous answers (to me, and to other people). You sounded extremely critical and jumped to many conclusions.
I completely agree that doing things bit by bit is valuable. Every little bit helps. And sensible, since a radical overhaul of a lifestyle isn't as easy as it sounds, as you have implied. The point I want to make is, that not everyone will be doing it bit by bit in the same order or with the same emphases as you. For example, I've got a limited budget, and young mouths to get at least 5 a day into, and therefore neither the in-season-ness of apples & cucucmber, or the air travel of bananas (all popular here and good for lunchboxes) nor the seasonality of duck (can't afford it, except for an annual treat when it's on special offer), are as high on my agenda as they might be on yours, but other things might be higher on mine than yours.
(no subject)
Oh for crying out loud. The point was that somebody who was taking part in a debate on seasonality of foods seemed to be arguing that fruit was "seasonal" if it was "in season abroad", which was making a nonsense of the terms of the debate.
I don't expect people to "fall over backwards to care" about anything; most people don't care about most things. I was, and still am, baffled at the sheer number of people whose response to the question seemed to be "how/why on earth would I know when fruit grow?", not because of their reasons or otherwise for caring or not caring but because I'm just amazed that it's possible to get to the age of 30 or thereabouts and not realised that "to every thing there is a season".
not everyone will be doing it bit by bit in the same order or with the same emphases as you
Yes, I KNOW THAT. And the question of priorities wasn't in any way my point, or even something I was interested in debating, until you charged in with "so have you ever bought something non-local? Are you perfect? ARE YOU? You BUY THINGS! BURN THE WITCH!" and for some reason I bothered to defend myself against drive-by tosspottery.
For example, I've got a limited budget, and young mouths to get at least 5 a day into
Oh, stop it, you're breaking my heart.
other things might be higher on mine than yours
Yes, yes. You win at green. Happy now?
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
I could tell you that raspberries aren't in season in February, but that's not the same thing as knowing when they are in season.
I suspect this is a combination of never having needed to care and not having a very good memory.
(no subject)
I can assure you I never sat down with a big almanack of Flowering Times In Great Britain and memorised the numbers, or made a conscious resolution to study the habits of cherry trees. I didn't "need to know" what spring or summer looked/felt like any more than I "needed to know" that the sky was kind of blueish or greyish most of the time. And no, I didn't grow up in some kind of rural idyll, just ordinary suburban houses with gardens! Maybe I am unusual in having noticed the world around me; but until getting into this bizarre conversation I honestly would have said that asking people "when does [most] fruit ripen?" was like asking "what colour are leaves?" or "does it ever rain in this country?"
(no subject)
I have realised that "know nothing about the seasons of fruit" is a bit of an exaggeration, though -- pick-your-own strawberries was a summertime-ish activity, so that's one I do know. (In fact I seem to have an odd desire to exaggerate in the direction of 'I know nothing' during this conversation, which is not very helpful.)
I do notice these things in some sense ("doesn't this bit look nice when the trees are in blossom", "hmm, blackberries along this lane now") -- but I couldn't tie those memories to a time of year with as much precision/confidence as seemed to be demanded by the original poll.
(no subject)