What foods do you look forward to the most for each season?

February 19, 2025 by
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Since the advent of refrigeration and air transport of foods across the globe, you can pretty much get any fruit or vegetable you desire any time of the year here in the US. However, there is a vast difference between commercially grown strawberries, plucked before they are actually ripe and shipped halfway around the world, and the first berry from your local farmers’ market (or if you are exceptionally fortunate, from your own backyard). With few exceptions, this is true for most produce. There are certain foods I eagerly anticipate with each change of season, devouring as much as I can before the bounty runs out.

We are experiencing a polar vortex here at the moment, with daytime highs below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, so I’m dreaming of spring delights to get me through this cold snap. I usually throw some peas into the garden just before the spring thaw, anticipating the delicate flowers to be followed by thin pods that grow more plump with each passing day (much like me during the winter months). I have never grown enough peas to cook with because I can’t stop myself from munching them right there in the garden. The dill patch that grows next to the peas is self-seeding, and the feathery fronds I gather in early spring while thinning the bed find their way into as many dishes I can think of. I am particularly fond of Sabrina Ghayour’s Green chicken (pictured above), which uses an abundance of fresh herbs to brighten up a bland chicken breast.

As the days grow longer and hotter, most of my friends anticipate the first tomato of the summer but I look forward to cucumbers. They grow with astonishing speed, finger-sized one day and ready to eat the next. The flavor and crunch of freshly picked cucumbers are incomparable to that of their unnaturally flexible greenhouse-grown cousins. Plus, there are so many different varieties available, each with their own quirky attributes. I appreciate pickling cucumbers, with their bumpy skins and slightly curved shape. They are especially crisp when eaten raw, and if picked small, are essentially seedless, meaning mega crunch and no calories – the ideal snack.

When the summer heat becomes oppressive, I think about how quickly it will be gone, replaced by brisk mornings and trips to the local orchard for juicy, crisp apples. It’s my husband’s favorite season because he loves everything apple and I only like them when they are just picked. This season is fleeting, and too soon autumn turns over to winter. That’s when visions of homey butternut squash fill my mind. Their vivid orange flesh provides a stark contrast to the dullness of the brown and gray landscape. This is also when I appreciate living in an era where I can get fresh citrus even though I live a thousand miles from where it’s grown. Seeing plump Meyer lemons brightens my day and makes me realize that spring is, after all, just around the corner – and with it those tender peas. What are your favorite seasonal foods?

Category: Antipasto

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13 Comments

  • Foodycat  on  February 20, 2025

    Asparagus. Since experiencing fresh, in-season British asparagus, I won’t buy out of season. I binge for 5 weeks and that’s it for the year.

    I also really miss Australian mango season. People in the UK get very excited when the South Asian mangoes appear here, but I don’t like them as much as Queensland mangoes.

  • StokeySue  on  February 20, 2025

    Apart from asparagus and broad beans (though frozen beans are good), summer salads; good local tomatoes; forced rhubarb (currently in season here, must get some); early new potatoes; purple sprouting broccoli; fresh basil; fresh late summer or early season English apples.

    I think you can tell I grew up in an English country garden lol

  • KatieK1  on  February 20, 2025

    Fresh corn and fuyu persimmons.

  • breakthroughc  on  February 20, 2025

    Here in the PNW I look forward to asparagus, morel mushrooms and strawberries. Our local berries are nothing like what you get at the grocery store.

  • lean1  on  February 20, 2025

    Garlic scapes first and the first local strawberries after that.

  • lkgrover  on  February 20, 2025

    Rhubarb from my coworker’s garden; fresh corn. I also miss the fresh peas from my mother’s garden (which I had to spend hours shelling as a child).

  • Indio32  on  February 20, 2025

    Tomatoes, Seville oranges & mangoes come to mind.

  • anya_sf  on  February 20, 2025

    Asparagus, fava beans, all kinds of berries, peaches, corn, tomatoes

  • JimCampbell  on  February 20, 2025

    We can get pretty much anything at any time. Even the farmers market, most of the tents selling vegetables are selling produce available year round. A little nicer, but pretty much what we see in the grocery market 200 yards away.

    We do have a vendor who only sells what they grow. They are focused on Asian vegetables. We look forward to the 2-3 weeks we can buy pea shoots (in right now). The family also grows the most abundant and great smelling Asian and sweet basil. Yo Choy is another vegetable we have been missing. They promised us it’s in the green house and will be at market in another 2-3 weeks. We do have a vendor in right now selling some of the best Fuji apples. Another vendor will show up toward the end of may or early June with corn.

    So I guess that makes it: Pea shoot, yo choy, basil, Fuji apple, and corn.

  • averythingcooks  on  February 20, 2025

    For us, it is everything as it starts coming out of our extensive gardens & greenhouse. We are thrilled to pick, eat, preserve & cook what we grow in our relatively short growing season. This includes many different varieties of tomatoes, both sweet & hot peppers, carrots, 3 different leafy greens, yellow & green beans, fingerling potatoes, cucumber, zucchini (1 plant! I repeat – 1 plant only!), lots of different onions, broccoli, cabbage, at least 8 different herbs & the one that always amazes me – garlic. The garlic went in late fall & is somehow doing its thing under several feet of snow…meanwhile, indoor seed starting begins at the end of March and I just can’t wait for it all:)

  • averythingcooks  on  February 20, 2025

    And I somehow forgot one of our favourites to grow…tomatillos!

  • TeresaRenee  on  February 20, 2025

    Rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries and sour cherries! Fresh pitted sour cherries are only available for a couple of weeks in July here in Toronto. Northern Spy apples in the fall…

    My uncle used to run a research station for Pioneer corn and spoiled us with just-picked sweet corn. It was amazing.

  • FJT  on  February 21, 2025

    Just at the end of the bergamots, now I’m looking forward to wild garlic next month (hopefully) and then the short asparagus season in May! I’m also planning which seeds to plant this year.

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