Читать книгу Indian Cooking For Dummies - Monisha Bharadwaj - Страница 42

With the way food stores now work, we can buy almost any food year-round. We’ve somewhat lost the joy of looking forward to certain foods at only certain times of the year and having to wait for our favorite foods to come into season.

One food that comes to mind is the Indian mango, the Alphonso variety in particular. Considered to be one of the best in the world, it’s sweet, very fragrant, saffron colored, smooth, and very seasonal. Around the middle of April, markets in western India see the arrival of boxes of Alphonso mangoes. Always highly priced, they still sell very well because buyers know that the season is short. The arrival of the first monsoon in June marks the end, and Alphonso mangoes disappear from the markets as suddenly as they first appeared.

Ayurveda even has a name for this kind of healthy eating: ritucharya (ritu means “season”). Mankind has known about the benefits of seasonal eating for a very long time! I find seasonal eating quite exciting because it connects me to my surroundings and makes me look forward to different foods at various times of the year. Berries and nectarines only taste good to me in the summer, and winters are for Brussels sprouts!

Here are some benefits of eating seasonally:

 It’s great for your health. Fruits and vegetables are more nutritious when they’re in season. Strawberries ripen well in the summer sun, and they struggle when they don’t have optimum growing and ripening conditions. Winter tomatoes are often watery and dull. Nutrient-rich foods hold the promise of good health, so why wouldn’t we choose them?

 It tastes great. This is why farmer’s markets are so popular — seasonal food tastes like it should! If you’ve ever grown your own vegetables, you don’t need me to tell you any more. Fruits and vegetables are seasonal for a reason. Keep in harmony with the balance of nature, and you’ll give yourself the best chance of good health.

 It’s great for the environment. You may argue that a food is in season somewhere in the world year-round. But transporting it to your local store means fuel emissions and a relatively long delay between harvesting and being on your table. You’re probably thinking that so many Indian ingredients are flown into our markets when they’re in season in faraway countries like India and Kenya. True, but in some recipes, you can swap some of those with what’s growing near you.

 It’s great for your budget. When foods are in season, markets are flooded with them, so naturally, prices go down. You’ll know this if you’ve ever tried to buy apricots in the winter. As for Alphonso mangoes, thankfully, you can’t buy them out of season, for love or money.