The market does the work for you

Shopping seasonally sounds like one of those wholesome lifestyle commitments that requires a tote bag, a notebook, and a complicated relationship with farmers. It isn't.

The vegetable that's in season this week is also the vegetable that's cheapest, the vegetable that's piled highest at the market, and the vegetable that's mysteriously included in three separate window displays at once.

The market is doing the calendar for you. You just have to walk past and notice.

Walk in curious, not certain

If you arrive certain you're cooking something with asparagus in October, you will pay for that certainty in both euros and disappointment.

Walk in curious instead. Look for the heap that's selling fastest. Sniff one. A peach in season fills the air around it; a peach out of season is silent and slightly resentful.

Pick up a fennel bulb and weigh it in your hand. If it feels heavier than it looks, it's full of water and was alive yesterday. If it feels light, it has been to too many parties.

Just ask

There is a polite way to get all this information without the squeeze test. Ask.

Italian markets reward the customer who asks. "Cosa è di stagione?" gets you the calendar; "Cosa mi consiglia?" gets you the seller's pride.

You will get a recommendation, often a small lecture, and occasionally a free sprig of something the seller insists you must put in the dish. None of this happens at a supermarket, where the produce is forced to introduce itself silently from behind plastic.

The cheat sheet you mostly already know

The seasons themselves you mostly already know:

  • Spring: artichokes, fave, peas, asparagus, the first strawberries that aren't quite ready but you eat them anyway.
  • Summer: the tomato's brief reign, plus zucchini, peppers, basil, eggplant, peaches, melon, and every fig that's ever existed.
  • Autumn: porcini, chestnuts, pumpkin, the first cabbages, and the late grapes that taste like the year's apology.
  • Winter: citrus carrying everyone on its back, plus radicchio, root vegetables, escarole, and the kind of cabbage that smells like it knows what's good for you.

Cook less, fail less

When ingredients are in season, you cook them less. A summer tomato wants olive oil, salt, basil, and silence.

The same tomato in January wants forty minutes with garlic, anchovy, and a glass of wine before it's prepared to make eye contact with you.

Cooking less also means failing less. There is more dignity in a plate of three things in season than in a beautifully composed dish whose hero ingredient was clearly imported under duress.

The math is also embarrassing

Out-of-season produce costs three to five times its peak. Buying in season is the closest thing to a discount you'll find without a coupon. Add the market over the supermarket and you're another twenty percent ahead.

The math gets so good that I sometimes wonder if everyone else knows about it and is just being polite by not telling.

The best meal of the week is almost always something that was cheap this morning. The vegetables can sense it. They cooperate. They taste like they want to be there. That's the only secret, and the market hands it to you for free, every Saturday, if you have the dignity to put down the recipe and accept what's offered."