Simply the Season: Eat Fresh or Preserve for Later?

How did you first learn—if you did—to can or freeze fresh garden produce to eat all year? Did you grow your own foods as a child? For many of us who were fortunate to grow up on farms with gardens, truck patches, and even orchards, the answer is: Growing and preserving our own food is as normal as brushing our teeth and taking out the garbage. It’s what people do.

The cookbook even includes ways to use the tops of carrots, discarded corncobs, celery leaves, squash blossoms, onion stems, and more.

I understand that not everyone grew up like this. But, I’m happy to say, young adults and thirtysomethings are not just turning back the clock but are also bringing their own innovations to preservation of all foods that are fresh, local, and crunchy.

These days of summer find me outside at the break of dawn picking beans, cucumbers, or tomatoes to preserve, come evening. August is also bursting with corn on the cob, but because we want to preserve the freshest taste possible, I wait until after work to pick and shuck corn. Some days I finish canning or freezing late in the night. I always comfort myself at these times by thinking of the camaraderie of a whole cadre of women (and some men) who willingly put in long hours to “put up” food, as we used to call it. I feel kinship with my Amish and Old Order faith cousins who, mostly, preserve their own foods. Their families frequently number six, eight, or 10 children. These families continue to can, freeze, and dry apples, pears, and peaches, and make hundreds of quarts of applesauce.

I must say that I didn’t really appreciate all of this until I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Harper Perennial, 2008), a book that looks at a year of food life in a very rural region of Virginia—and how to eat foods grown or produced locally as much as possible. Each member of author Barbara Kingsolver’s family was allowed a “pass” (one favorite that was a nonlocal food they didn’t want to give up, like coffee or bananas). It’s interesting reading and gently nudges you to consider incorporating new food choices in your lifestyle.

So Herald Press was thrilled when Barbara Kingsolver’s husband, Steven L. Hopp, coauthor of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, agreed to write the foreword for the 2015 edition of Simply in Season. This is a book celebrating fresh, local foods, with more than three hundred mouthwatering recipes and stories from fans of seasonal cooking, and includes a season-by-season guide on to how to cook everything you might find at a farmers’ market or food co-op or in a box from your Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) producer—or grow yourself.

Simply in Season authors Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert, a nutrition expert and professional writer, respectively, are both totally committed to eating as healthily and locally as possible. The premise of the new edition is recipes and inspiration for eating seasonally. But the new edition of Simply in Season is a feast for the eyes as well, with numerous photos of prepared dishes so people see what some of the newer recipes and dishes might look like when finished.

In addition, the book now offers recipe notations for gluten-free and vegetarian recipes. An expanded guide offers info on how to choose, store, and prepare various fruits and vegetables—and maybe includes some you are not familiar with. Kohlrabi anyone? Mesclun? Scapes? How would I use parsnips? It even includes—for avid recyclers and for all of us—ways to use the tops of carrots, discarded corncobs, celery leaves, squash blossoms, onion stems, and more. The book truly inspires you to try preparing and serving new foods—through the recipes but also through the little stories and quotes from recipe submitters and, in this edition, cookbook fans from the last 10 years. (To make room for the photography, some of the recipes were omitted from this edition after a careful testing process with the cookbook’s most faithful users.)

Pair this book with an earlier title called Saving the Seasons: How to Can, Freeze, or Dry Almost Anything (Herald Press, 2010) by mother-daughter team Mary Clemens Meyer and Susanna Meyer, and you’ll be able to handle almost anything your farmers’ market or favorite farmer throws at you in a CSA box!

Click here for a free excerpt from the new edition of Simply in Season that includes delightful color photos, a fruit-and-vegetable guide, and several free recipes, or email MelodieD@MennoMedia.org. Or write to Another Way, 1251 Virginia Ave., Harrisonburg, VA 22802.