'The perfect reference book for all keen cooks, for all those fed up with all year round strawberries, and for all those who want an affinity for the seasons'

Antony Worrall Thompson

Seasonal Food - a guidebook to what's in season when and why in Britain, so that you can eat produce at its best, contribute to a renaissance in local production, and simply revel in the variety of the seasons.

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www.seasonalfood.com

Seasonal Food Chart

The few recipes in this book are mostly simple ones that celebrate the quality of the produce on which they are based. There are many, many cookbooks available with more creative recipes for seasonal produce, and the bibliography contains a selection of some of the best.

Seasonal Food is not prescriptive: it doesn't suggest that we turn back the clock and throw ourselves on the mercy of the seasons, as our distant ancestors had to. We've long since dealt with the problem of seasonal hardship. If the book prescribes anything, it is that we rediscover the astonishing variety of seasonal food beyond just turkey and sprouts.

Finally, Seasonal Food covers only British produce. This is not for reasons of nationalism, nor is it a rejection of the international trade in food: life without such favourites as marmalade, parmesan cheese, coffee, good red wine or bananas would be diminished indeed. However, many things that grow perfectly in their British season are now supplied all year round, for example, strawberries, asparagus and apples. This book argues that often our own produce is best, and it questions the ecological and gastronomic wisdom of treating, storing and transporting food so that we can eat it at the 'wrong' time of year, particularly when, in some cases (such as apples), we could eat our own, superior produce for a much longer season if the food chain were arranged for the good of consumers rather than large corporations.

The most important reason for this book's focus on British produce is the simple fact that it is excellent. Our country's poor gastronomic reputation comes not from the fact that we can't grow or raise good things. We can. Rather, it stems from complex, interrelated historical factors such as our early concentration of land ownership in few hands, early industrialization and the impact of the twentieth century's great wars, as well as a pervasive 'science knows best' attitude. Then the cult of Mediterranean food - a sun-drenched alternative to post-war drabness - knocked British food traditions back even further.

Today, the excellence of British produce, from fruit and veg to cheese and meat, is being rediscovered, as are some of our gastronomic traditions. Eating locally and in season will help accelerate this rediscovery and set us on a path to a tastier, healthier and more sustainable food chain.