For your sake, I hope you didn't serve any ham that wasn't slaughtered within 48 hours and 25 miles from your home.
I raised, slaughtered, butchered and cured the ham in my own backyard. Only the ignorant buy their ham from the store.
The last thing you want is food from some place far away. It might even have been picked by brown people or something... What makes local produce better? Foreign climates often produce better food than the British climate so why not fly it in?
Amateur. I have my own micro-farm in my own garden, growing everything from wheat to tropical fruit to tuna. I'm so self-sufficient I even drink rain water rather than pumping it in from miles away where it doesn't taste the same. Of course I only drink water from autumn through spring when it's seasonal.
There are no local fresh vegetables in january where you live? Where do you live, the north pole? Cabbage, red beetroot, kale, cabbage (all types), sauerkraut, carrots, brussels sprouts, leeks, chicory - and that's just out of the top of my head and on top of year round available veg like onions and potatoes! Anyway the point I was trying to make is that having special veg like asparagus around all year takes the fun and charm out of it. Feel free to disagree. It's also environmentally responsible to eat local veg but that's another discussion.
The hilarious thing, given the above post, is that you think you're in a position to ridicule me on this subject. Here's a suggestion: Google 'benefits of local produce'.
Increasing the consumption of sustainable & local food is promoted by organisations across the western world. Fresh local food tastes better, is of better nutritional quality, supports your local economy, and is environmentally obviously much friendlier. Everybody with an ounce of common sense knows it but people obviously just love to argue with me regardless of the subject matter. I'm not bothered. Ironically, seeing Leg Breaker's posts, it is a particularly big issue in Britain but the Eat British campaign has obviously managed to completely pass him by!
I hope the Dutch Farmers association never see this or they'll have your guts for garters!! Aldi are doing fresh seasonal veg for 39c!!
I 2nd that. Dutch tomatoies are uneatable in Germany. Here they are just fine... My gf couldn't understand when I was thinking about strawberries last week on the market though... Asparagus I only eat when the season comes, and preferably local. Most other fruits and veggies I couldn't care less about though. And, as a student, I usually try to buy cheapest, not necessarily local.
That's fair enough. I'm not anal about it or anything, it's just that I couldn't help notice that there seems to be no seasonal awareness in England when it comes to food, whereas there is much more so on the continent. Btw, the cheapest often is local and in season!
The last sentence is true, so I buy more cabbage in the winter and strawberries in the summer. However, I'd buy it because it is cheap, not because it is local (if I have two at the same price I'd go for local though). I am somewhat anal about that when it comes to asparagus, though.
The german would be shocked by what the leg breaker etc have posted No one here buys out of season veg. It's a big no no. In fact the markets scarcely carry it. Only the mall shoppers would do such a thing....
You do have to consider that a much of the produce Americans eat is produced in California, where the arable land is vast ,and for the most part, the climate is moderate year round (and to a lesser extent, Florida with its fruits).
That's fair enough. I didn't even initially comment on the US btw, I was commenting on the English situation. They have the same climate pretty much as Northern Europe so there's no real reason for the difference in attitudes towards seasonal food.
Well, I think it would be fairer not to treat the US as one region for 'regional food', as it is double the area of the EU for example. However, frozen Asparagus just sounds wrong to me. I prefer canned vegetables to frozen ones, knowing that they are less healthy, just a matter of taste. But freezing asparagus? na (that said, asparagus in Germany and the NL is usually eaten riper than the one you eat in the UK or the US.)
no local fresh vegtables in Chicago in the middle of winter. Kinda hard to grow stuff when it is 0 degrees F outside.
I don't necessarily have a problem with frozen veg, that wasn't what I was arguing against - you made the discussion bigger than my original point of debate. I was pointing out that while I like English food in general, I missed people getting excited about seasonal food when I was living there. Whereas the attitude in continental Europe toward seasonal food and fresh produce is different. Anyway you've read the comments of other continental Europeans, don't take my word on it.
