I grew up in Mansfield, OH. Central Ohio. The Heart of it all. Yeah, all of that. I remember my earliest memories involve food. Not just any food, what they call slow, home-cooked local food. The weekly visits included the major supermarket chains, BUT ALWAYS included the ritual of going to the bakery, local meat market/butcher and the fruit stand. For quite some time I didn't even know you could buy these items any other way.
These rituals mark the way I eat today and the things I choose to eat today. I can remember being told "knee high by July" (a reference to the height of the corn growing in the fields) and how to pick and snap green beans. Picking chestnuts off my grandmas tree int he winter. Apple harvests and hot warm cider in the fall. Anticipating blackberries, peaches and cherries in the summer.
I knew once I grew up and had a family I would dream of baking fruit pies and a dinners of amish free range chicken, fluffy "smashed" potatoes, verdant green beans, fried fresh corn and a couple of sliced 'maters (tomatoes). This is how I was raised. You could tell the seasons by what you were eating, and what you were eating was by the season. There was beauty in this simplicity and prose could be wrote by the definition of its harvest.
Somehow in the ability to have MORE we have gotten away from fresh LOCAL harvests. Minding the seasons seems an absurdity and almost a old-fashioned notion. There is a way to change this. You can seek out Farmers Markets in your area. Try research online or in a library to find out local producers in addition to your "big box stores". I have included a few helpful websites below.
The Peak Season Map at Epicurious.com
Local Harvest
Slow Food USA
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