the classical four seasons that we dragged over
from the UK.” He thinks the “unseasonal” oddities
that many of us report are really not that unseasonal
at all, and they’d make a lot more sense if we
abandoned our traditional notions of seasons
to think about our climate in a different way.
“When I worked at the Sydney Royal Botanic
Garden, around late July or early August we’d start
getting phone calls from people asking if we were
having an early spring because they’d seen magnolias
or daffodils or acacia,” he says. “For the first couple of
years I thought it must be climate change, which it may
have been in part, but then I realised that every year
we’d get the exact same phone calls. And I realised
that we were ignoring this huge flowering that went
on every year, earlier than it was ‘supposed’ to.”
He thinks the same thing probably happens with
fruits and vegetables and suggests that if we keep
that in mind then perhaps we won’t be quite so
surprised by the surprises.
W
hat does all this seasonal confusion
mean for the ordinary food-lover who
simply wants to know when the best
time is to buy, order and eat the juiciest
mangoes or the sweetest peas? Unfortunately it makes
it particularly difficult, especially as climate change
means things will only become more and more
tumultuous. Supermarkets, where most of us buy
our fruits and vegetables, offer little assistance as they
are set up to sell everything all the time, sourcing
produce from all over the world or freezing produce
from earlier in the year to resell later.
Your best bet is to trust those who work the
most closely with the food you’re eating. Ask for their
direction and advice about what is happening with
your favourite foods in this particular season of this
particular year – be it chefs or farmers at your local
growers’ markets.Don’t expect cherries will be there
on the very first day of December. Ask your local fruit
grower in advance about when it looks like they’ll be
arriving and you’ll be best placed to get the pick of the
crop. “We all want the seasons to start on the first of
the month or the 22nd of the month or whatever it
is,” says Entwisle. “As a scientist I like to have things
neatly arranged.” Instead, he says, we should learn
to embrace the mercurial nature of nature. “It’s
quite exciting when you do it that way,” he says.
“The anticipation builds.”
And most of all, the trick is always to buy as locally
as you can. That way, you know you’re always getting
the freshest and most seasonally appropriate produce,
whatever the weather is doing that year. Even if it’s
yellow cherry tomatoes in the middle of winter.●
GOURMET TRAVELLER 75