Cooking the Year as It Turns
Seasonal eating isn't a rule to follow — it's the easiest way to make vegetables taste like more than themselves.
By Mara Okafor · · 6 min read
There is a particular flavour to a tomato eaten in late August, three days off the vine, still warm from the windowsill. There is also a particular sadness to one eaten in February, flown in pale and mealy from somewhere it was picked green. Seasonal cooking is, at its most practical, a way of avoiding the second tomato.
We don't treat the seasons as a moral project at Wildplate. We treat them as a shortcut. When you cook what's in season, the ingredient does most of the work — you just have to stay out of its way.
Let the glut set the menu
The best seasonal cooking is reactive. You see a wall of sweet corn at the market and you build dinner around it; you don't decide on a dish in the abstract and then go hunting for sad, out-of-season versions of its parts.
In high summer that might mean our charred corn elote bowls — corn blackened on the grill until it squeaks, dressed with a smoky cashew crema. In deep autumn it's roots: carrots and parsnips lacquered in miso and roasted until their edges turn to caramel.
Build a seasonal pantry, not a seasonal panic
Seasonality at the front of the plate works best when the back of the plate is steady. A good pantry — tahini, miso, coconut milk, vinegars, a jar of chilli crisp — means you can take whatever the season hands you and turn it into dinner without a special shop.
That's the whole game, really. Buy what's good. Keep the supporting cast stocked. Then cook the year as it turns.
- seasonal eating
- philosophy
- vegetables
