Food Feature

Eating seasonal foods is healthier say experts, tastier say taste buds and natural, says common sense.

Tastes subconsciously change from summer salads to more hearty autumnal dishes. However, though your body tells you to eat more fulfilling dishes, supermarket choice has resulted in a blurring of seasonal produce. Unfortunately, your body cannot naturally identify what’s in season, so you need to be in the know of what’s meant to be naturally enjoyed.

“Autumn is known as the real chef’s season, when fruit and vegetables are at their ripest and lamb at its tastiest” says celebrity chef Nigel Slater, so here are a few of his guidelines to help you enjoy food as the weather cools down and the Aga heats up:

Meat: Autumn lamb is available until the end of October and generally produces a better flavour than the strangely more popular spring lamb. The meat is matured for longer over the summer period, which results in redder meat streaked with white fat, which all adds to the flavour.

“A great steak and kidney pie, rich with red wine and dark mushrooms, is something I would like to put on the table as a weekend meal when the nights start to draw in,” says Slater. “Cheaper dishes such as chicken livers with grapes and onions or a sausage and liver hotpot are great for midweek cooking. Pork in any form seems perfect for the cooling weather and is of course good with the russet apples, conference pears and varieties of late plums such as czar and Marjorie’s seedling that will be with us over the autumn months.”

Game and poultry: Partridge, guinea fowl and locally farmed goose all become seasonal during the autumn. The goose season begins in September but matures to its best in November and into December.

Shellfish: Prawns, mussels, oysters are at their best, making them tasty additions to autumnal menus.

“The fish stall is at its best, with wild sea bass, sprats, crab, mussels, lobster, squid, scallops and oysters all at their finest,” comments Slater. “This is the time when I think about making a deep pan of fish stew with mussels and clams, served with hunks of crusty bread to dip into my bowl. Or perhaps I should make the first fish pie of the year with prawns, mussels and lots of chopped parsley.”

Vegetables: Leafy vegetables like cabbage, kale, spinach, broccoli and leeks and root vegetables like carrots, swedes, parsnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, squash, marrows, courgettes and beetroot are all in season during October and November. Autumn vegetables are packed with nutrition and are hearty enough to take the chill out of the autumn air and satisfy the body’s need for carbohydrate fuel. Roast them, add them to soups, or create heavenly vegetarian dishes with them.

Fruits: Apples, pears, plums, quince, satsumas, clementines and pomegranates are all in season. Though many people go off the thought of fruit when the temperature drops, they soon change their mind when confronted with delicious baked apples or poached pears. Autumn fruits make delightfully satisfying puddings says Slater; “It’s what I call the crumble season, when damson, plum and greengages are begging to be turned into the most British of hot puddings,”