Green Season

I've been teaching my oldest boy, nearly four, to appreciate fruits and veggies in season. When we visit our local fruit market, we talk a lot about why we can't buy peaches all year 'round, and why raspberries are expensive more often than not. He gets it; he asks me all the time when, say, mandarins are in season and when is the best time to buy watermelon. I'm happy to answer these sorts of inquiries; we get to chat about climate and farmers and the seasons. Then he asks me about tomatoes. Or bananas. Or carrots. Or about the innumerable other fruits and veggies which, through a combination of cold storage, hot-houses, and inter-hemisphere transport, are never “out of season.” It's tricky, trying to explain these things. Not the concepts, as my boy is quite bright, but I've put so much emphasis on in-season being “good,” I don't know how foods which are the opposite can be anything but “bad.” It's not that simple.



The issue isn't simple at all, actually. Eating local produce, in season, is generally considered better; for you, for your taste buds, and for the universe. I, more or less, buy into this way of thinking. Mostly, I'd rather eat asparagus that was picked sometime in the last week or so from a farm in my part of the world rather than the same product sent across the pacific in refrigerated shipping containers. I'll always pick field tomatoes over their hot-house cousins. I know, however, that it isn't possible to always eat locally and in season. I can't cook without onions, whether or not they are in season. Does that mean I eat old onions, or onions from the northern hemisphere (or both)? Yes it does. Potatoes? Green beans? Pumpkin? Bring on the cold-storage, other-side-of-the-world stuff.

It is entirely possible to eat only locally-grown and produced foods (depending on what distance you define as local) but it is not terribly practical. A healthy diet is a varied one, and choosing not to supplement one's diet with a few out-of-season veggies, severely limits dinner options. Which is my point; while in-season might be unequivocally good, the opposite is not necessarily bad.

The key, I think, is committing to a imbalanced balance. That is, a balance of local and in-season foods, which far outweighs your consumption of produce obviously from the other side of the planet. It's a fairly simple bargain to strike with yourself: I'll eat mostly delicious, fresh, local, inexpensive fruit and veggies and fill the rest of my diet with the occasional out-of-season interloper.



The polar opposite to all of these foods which seem to have no season are those rare bits of produce which have a achingly brief appearance on fruit shop shelves. These are your white peaches, your mulberries, your fresh borlotti beans. These are the sort of items which represent the nexus of rarity, difficulty of storage or transport, and relatively low demand. On a practical level, it means that, for the greatest part of the year, these foods are simply not available. On a more personal level, it means that the anticipation of any of these foods returning to the shops makes eating them all that much better.

It is just such a foodstuff that has me thinking about all of this, one I have glimpsed, in years past, for brief seconds in little bins at the local market: fresh, green almonds. These soft, green, fuzzy, immature nuts can be eaten whole and have a jelly-like kernel which is clear and tastes slightly milky and vaguely nutty and sweet. The green husk tastes, well, green; it is reminiscent of cucumber, only more bitter. The overall impression is intriguing rather than outright delicious, but the combination of flavors and textures is undeniably moreish.

The facetious side of me would like to point out that a quick Google search for “green almonds” yields a great deal of vegan and vegetarian recipes. Read a bit further and you'll find that these under ripe nuts are the darling of the raw-food movement and a staple in vegan diets. DON'T THESE PEOPLE REALIZE GREEN ALMONDS ARE THE VEAL OF THE VEGAN WORLD. These little nuts never had a chance to make it to maturity. So, so cruel. And tasty.

Fried Green Almonds with Serrano and Melon

Green almonds come in two types: (1) the very young, where the shells haven't formed at all and the nut is gelatinous and (2) the slightly more mature with a formed shell around a milky nut. This recipe is for the very young almonds. There is, actually, very little here in the way of a recipe at all. I'll tell you how to cook the almonds, though they can be eaten raw, and it is up to you so serve them with some thinly-sliced Spanish ham – Jamón Ibérico is the goods – and some fresh, sweet, musky melon. Think you can handle that?

200g young green almonds
3 Tbsp olive oil
pinch sea salt
½ lemon

Heat the oil in a fry pan over medium heat. Add the almonds and sauté, shaking the pan frequently, until the almonds brown slightly. Remove from the pan, drain on paper towels, and season with lemon juice and sea salt.