Two years ago for one of our Sessions, I lamented that many of the traditionally seasonal beers are now available year-round. That was Session 17, and it’s theme was Drinking Anti-Seasonally, where I wrote:
We live in a time when seasonality has lost its meaning, and not just with respect to beer. Any fruit, regardless of its growing season is available at the average supermarket, flown from around the world so that our every whim not go unfulfilled. Let no sales opportunity go to waste. Convenience is king. As consumers we believe that whatever we want should be available whenever we want it, because that’s the bill of goods we’ve been sold. Remember those bothersome watermelon seeds. Gone. Strawberries in the winter? Thank you Guatemala. We don’t like to wait for anything anymore. And usually we don’t have to, because there’s someone willing to sell us whatever we fancy, regardless of the season.
But if you’re like me, you can decide to choose your foods according to the seasons and an English website, Eat Seasonably, has a great interactive calendar to help you do just that.
From the calendar itself, you can choose to either see when a particular fruit or vegetable is in season, or you can choose a particular month, such as the current month, July.
Around the outer ring, it shows what’s best for that month, which in July’s case is cucumbers, curly lettuce and cherries. The inner ring then shows what else is in season throughout the month.
The chart is also divided up and color-coded by season. They also have various sizes of posters that can be downloaded and printed out. The posters also include a handy chart that lists common fruits and vegetables and then using the color-coding shows which months each one is in season.
It’s a pretty cool little chart, and until we get the beer seasons figured out better, at least we can eat with the seasons.