Shortage of tomatoes in the middle of February

[Stillcountingbeans]

Oh how my great-grandmother would have laughed!

www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/21/asda-morrisons-ration-tomatoes-peppers-fruit-shortages

When's the U.K. banana season?

I'm always interested by the comments on French and Italian markets being amazing. Well yes. They are. But in general they only stock their own produce. Italian relatives visiting us are always blown away by the range of international food we have access to, and of course how cheap it is (was).

So you've never eaten bananas or oranges or melon?

Grapes, sugar, tea, coffee, pulses, lentils, chocolate...

Interestingly (okay interesting to me probably not most people 😂) bananas have a really low carbon footprint compared to a lot of food that gets transported, because they keep so well they can be transported by boat instead of plane (sorry if you already knew this)

I always assumed bananas would have a high carbon footprint and tended to go for fruits that if not from the UK at least came from nearby European countries but apparently its not that straightforward

(sorry I'm the kid in the corner with a new and interesting fact that has absolutely nothing to do with your comments but is dying to share it regardless)

If we all ate what us in season in the U.K. wouldn't there be even less in the shops?

We don't grow enough to feed even half of us, do we?

Have you eaten medlars, quinces or jerusalem artichokes?

Yes I posted something along these lines earlier in the thread as well

I am all for eating seasonally because I grow such a large proportion of what I eat but if people think eating seasonally in the UK just means eating British they would be in for a shock especially in the hungry gap

I like to try to keep the carbon footprint low on the foods I do buy but there are limits (I love chocolate too much)

One for the blackbird one for the crow is a very good book which shows just how precarious relying on your own resources is (not set in the UK but still relevant)

A country that relied on Jerusalem artichokes would be a smelly one! 😁

I read a paper a while ago about the possibility of the UK being self sufficient in food. The conclusion was we could just about do it but we would really have to embrace a different diet. Lots of peas, especially dried would be involved. So in reality not possible, too risky in the event of crop failures.

But we really could do a lot better than we are now. We could grow a bit more and change our lives to a bit more seasonable. As the world's poor get richer, they also want lots of nice food and we wont just be able to out bid everyone to get our wants, we will be able to pay market price and get our needs.

Sure would but they do grow very well here and when do you see them in shops?

If you eat them little and often your guts get used to the fermentable fibre and they are fine, plus very tasty.

I think I read somewhere it's because they are so fiddly and the soil sticks to the wrinkles so they don't seem 'appealing' which is such a sad reason not to sell them. Jerusalem artichoke soup is the best soup ever in my opinion and about 90% of my crop gets turned into it every year

I've always done this. Not sure why really, just on principle of not buying imported food if it can be produced here. So I do buy tea, coffee and oranges for example but would never in a million years buy fresh raspberries in winter.
I grow a bit of fruit and veg and use frozen a lot in winter. I had french beans today but they were grown in my garden and frozen in August.
One thing it does is make you really appreciate salads when they come into season.

@ConfusedNT artichokes have improved over time, check out the Sainsburys ones, and mine

I'm in Australia, and while pretty much everything grows here, I eat fresh produce seasonally. Stone fruit, lemons and grapes can be got from the USA when out of season here, but I don't buy them.
It took some getting used to, but now seems natural.

I remember when a cyclone wiped out the entire banana-producng capacity of Australia years ago and prices didn't get back to normal for about two years. So for us, two years without bananas as prices were beyond silly or imports. Meh.

I am going to plug Nigel Slater's site again as he has so many seasonal recipes.

When I buy bananas I try to get ones from the Windward Islands, less mono-culture.

I don't think grandmother could do a Sunday afternoon high tea without cucumber sandwiches. (Tomato and sugar sandwiches if we'd been really good) My dad used to make his own sandwich from the classic British salad of lettuce, tomato and cucumber that was always on the table.

I agree with you that this Brexit thing of getting fresh food from Africa or South America instead of just over the water from Spain or the Netherlands is a step in the wrong direction, but year round tomatoes and cucumbers are not that decadent. They're a basic staple food in this country.

That book looks interesting AdventFridgeofshame

You might also like the Potato Book AdoraBell , quite sobering bits about life in Ireland around the potato famine time.

I do like a good social history told via food book.

New Zealand but DH won't go- he has parents who live near us.

It doesn’t ‘taste so much better’ it will severely limit choice

Interestingly enough, after WWII boats came to welsh docks packed and the first crates were given to mothers struggling to feed their babies. We’ve had tea and bananas for a long time.

fwiw, it was Jamie Oliver who first taught me carrots don’t have to be school dinner style. Baked with butter, cumin seeds and white wine.

Id suggest “horrible seasonal veg” are more a hangover from 70s school dinners than the veg himself.

id like to eat more British produce, but most of you want the country built on - and poor people overseas to grow your tomatoes.

I buy frozen sliced peppers for making fahitas. Much cheaper. We’re not too bothered about tomatoes, very tasteless at this time of year, and for the price, strawberries are crap.

i avoid them

It doesn’t ‘taste so much better’

We'll have to agree to disagree but I enjoy fresh seasonal kale and butternut squash much more right now than tasteless imported tomatoes.

And really, we're just reverting to a default of 99.9999% of history.

Still a pisser, but hardly a catastrophe. I've grown lettuce in the conservatory through the winter, plus rocket, chives etc.