seasonal = local?

[jubilant cerise]

Had breakfast out on the weekend and got the pancakes with seasonal fruit which consisted of: strawberries, blueberries, grapes, pineapple and orange. The last two items do not grow on the Canadian west coast and it got me wondering if "seasonal" is interchangeable with "local?" And if so, the rest of the fruit shouldn't have been on the pancakes since none of that stuff is ripe yet here (except for the strawberries which are probably still greenhouse grown). I was expecting rhubarb and maybe apples (though, again, with the weather being what it has this year so far, I doubt it).

Anyhow, now that I'm reading over what I've written I feel like I'm ranting but I just wanted to see if anyone else has experienced something like this?

[beachmouse]

There are some food items that don't have to have all of the flavor bred out of them in order to travel reasonably well. A Vidalia onion is a seasonal vegetable even if it isn't particularly local. US-grown apples are a fall fruit for maximum freshness, and winter is citrus season. And I feel like there is a taste (and price difference) if you're buying Michigan apples in Florida in November instead of June, and the same goes for citrus in cold weather climates, where it seemed like it was a sign of affluence at one point to have oranges at Christmas celebrations.

[jubilant cerise]

And some produce ripens once it's picked - like avocados! so I make some exceptions for things like those. But yes, I notice a difference between seasonal produce that's travelled some distance and seasonal produce from a local farm, both in price and quality.

Is a Christmas orange not a tradition in the US? It is still here in Canada or at least when I was a kid - always in the toe of the Christmas stocking. I think it's an English tradition and comes from a time when non-local fruit was exotic and rare. And yes, most likely a sign of wealth and affluence. Did you know bananas used to be canned?

[escondido123]

Yes, avocados will ripen off the tree, but as I learned having an avocado tree (what a treat!) the longer they stay on the tree the more oil/flavor they develop. I believe that is why the avocados in avocado country have such a rich taste.

[beachmouse]

I remember the oranges for Christmas as a sign that Laura's family was doing well in the Little House on the Prairie books. My US Midwestern family never did that specifically, but others probably did, and it always seemed like you'd see ads for holiday citrus boxes in November-December.

[mpjmph]

We still get oranges in our stockings in my family (in the Southern US), generally referred to as toe-oranges (as in, I'm going to take a break from the chocolate for now and eat my toe-orange instead). We also get potatoes, but that's just a family quirk.

[paulj]

This wasn't Sooke Harbor House, was it? :) I wonder what fruit they have on their breakfast menu at this time of the year.

[jubilant cerise]

It was actually at Swans Pub downtown. My partner finished his night shift, called me horrendously early to go for breakfast and it was the first place he found open while I was on my way to meet him.

s much as I want to, I don't order pancakes out because I've always been disappointed in the past: spongy in a bad way, undercooked, too light, too sweet and unfilling. This time, I lucked out! :)

The pancake description reeled me in: "buttermilk pancakes made with in-house milled grains..." They were large and thin but dense in a good way with crisped sides, like the crispy parts of french toast. The strawberries were layered in between the three pancakes, perhaps to prevent them from going soggy from their own heat/steam? And the rest of the fruit was scattered on top and around the plate. No whipped cream - just butter and real maple syrup.

I also ordered a side of sausage just to be on the safe side (my usual way to counterbalance light and unsubstantial pancakes) and probably could've done without it - especially because it cost $4 for ONE sausage - I didn't read the menu that closely, oops. Three pancakes were a good size meal and I'd order them again.

Haven't been to Sooke Harbour House for a meal - just looked around at the artwork and garden, then picnic outside on Whiffen Spit and talked about eating at the restaurant sometime ;)

[paulj]

I walked the spit with the dog while my wife got the garden tour. We had lunch at a diner in Sooke.

This must be the Swans menu

http://www.swanshotel.com/brewpub/doc...

I'm more impressed by the 'in-house milled grains'. Sounds as though they try use some local stuff, but don't go to the extreme of substituting local lemon verbena for non local lemon.

[jubilant cerise]

It was definitely the in-house milled grains that sold me. They had character and depth, not like boxed pancake mix or whatever the other restaurants are using. I thought my own pancake recipe was pretty good until I ate the Swans ones! I wouldn't say they're the best pancakes ever but it got me thinking again about how much flour plays an important role in their taste and texture.

[escondido123]

When I see seasonal I expect to see the foods that are for sale at our Farmers' Market. Nowadays you can get almost anything anywhere foodwise, but that doesn't make it seasonal for everywhere.

[meadandale]

I agree with this concept. Seasonal is meaningless if you accept it to mean what is in season somewhere. Everything fits this bill.

I think from this standpoint, seasonal really only has meaning if it is coupled with local...and how you define local. If you define local as anywhere then everything is always in season. If you define local as within 100 or 500 miles than I'm not eating peppers and tomatoes in December since they are not widely available (although limited quantities may be grown in a hoophouse/greenhouse).

If you think about what seasonal meant 100 years ago you'd have a pretty good idea of what I consider seasonal. Produce wasn't shipped long distances because it didn't keep and shipping was slow.

[jubilant cerise]

I was starting to feel silly for mulling this over since Sunday, so thanks for sharing your thoughts on this!

I'm not against eating non-local produce (I love mangoes and pineapple) and I also try to be conscious of buying locally grown produce. But yes, the term "local" it's pretty subjective, for sure. If 100 miles is local, then anything I get from Seattle, WA is still local to my home town of Victoria, BC! :)

[inaplasticcup]

I'm silly much in the same way you are, then. :)

[mpjmph]

I'd say food from Seattle and other parts of Washington state is definitely local for BC. The farmers' market in my community sticks to a 50-mile radius, but a lot of the grocery stores in the area have produce from neighboring states, and I still consider that local-ish. I'm in North Carolina, and absolutely consider peaches or strawberries from South Carolina to be local.

To me, if it can feasibly be on the shelves of the grocery store (or in the restaurant kitchen) within 12-24 hours of harvest without flying in a plane, then it's local. I also give preference for regionally grown foods, which helps expand my season a little. During colder months, I try to buy produce from Florida rather than that from California or South America.

[paulj]

Do you favor importing labor from South America (to harvest Florida produce) over importing fruit?

This paper summary from 2008 isn't the final word on 'food miles', but it gives some idea of the real trade offs

http://www.physorg.com/news148754503....

[mpjmph]

I'd rather do what it takes to have a thriving agriculture system in the USA than support systems in other countries that may or may not have the same protections for workers and the environment that we have in the US (which is a scary thought considering how limited the protection here can be). Other than that, I'd rather not get into a discussion of immigration dynamics, as that is a sure fire way to get this thread locked.

For me, buying local is not just about saving carbon points from food transit. It's about supporting the local/regional economy, protecting farm land from development, and having food pass through fewer hands between the field and my plate.

[jubilant cerise]

Yup, I'd consider neighbouring states/provinces to be local as well. I also agree with supporting local agriculture as much as possible.

Victoria apparently used to be the apple capital of BC but I'm pretty sure a lot of the apples in the grocery store are from the mainland (Victoria is on an island) - which yes, is still local but shows how much the development of this port town has changed.

There's a lot of great island-local produce but I don't know how much and how much is transported from across the waters.

[paulj]

At one time Victoria and the Gulf Islands had a transportation advantage, being able to ship products to Vancouver and further afield by boat. With improved rail and road transportation, the warmer growing conditions in the Okanagan-Similkameen valleys allowed that region to take over most of the market.
http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/aboutind/pro...

Similarly most of Washington's orchard crops come from the east side of the Cascades. Even a lot of our farmer's market vendors are from the Yakima Valley.

[inaplasticcup]

I don't equate seasonal with local, and when I see seasonal on a menu, I usually take it to mean whatever's cheaply/easily gotten at that time of year. That's not how I define seasonal when I choose produce, which is that it is within the optimal growing season for the particular produce in its place of origin.

But that does sound like sort of a mish mash of whatever fruit was laying around that doesn't quite go together, and I might take a little issue with that in my mind... ;)

[jubilant cerise]

Seasonal within the region it grows in makes sense too. It makes more sense to me that a strawberry grown in season within, say 100 miles of my eating location, would be cheaper than one from Mexico when it's February. And would taste better too. (Can't wait for strawberries - made a tiny batch of jam with last summer's pick and have been savouring the last jar.)