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Seasonal gold lights up the forest

7 comments

Chanterelles
Photo: Anne Skoogh.

Every year I have the same experience: All of a sudden the air has become high and crisp and there is something about the light that tells me that summer is gone. I never feel entirely ready for autumn to come, but one has to try to remember the nice things about it too.

Dinner from the forest

One good thing about autumn is for example the great variety of nice seasonal food which is available even here in the northern part of the globe. 
Last weekend I was out on one of the islands of the archipelago outside Stockholm. Taking a walk in the forest, I and my friend suddenly realized that we had lost ourselves totally. Then we discovered the mushrooms; large patches of golden yellow chanterelles dotting the dark green moss. In the end I had to take off my coat and use it as a bag, and when we finally got back to the hostel where we stayed, the heap in my coat was about the size of a football. Dinner that night was delicious.

Reducing emissions

Cooking in a way that follows the seasons is a much less environmental demanding way of eating than having everything all the time. For example, eating locally grown iceberg lettuce while we can grow it outdoors causes up to 16 times less CO2-emissions compared to in wintertime, when it has to be grown in a heated greenhouse far away and then being transported here.
But causing fewer emissions isn’t the only advantage of eating seasonal food, I would say. For people like me, with bad fantasy when it comes to cooking, it’s also a good inspiration to start with the ingredients of the month. With the awareness of climate issues increasing steadily, there are more and more cookbooks with recipes that follow the seasons.

The other day I found a great slideshow on the international green blog Treehugger, showing one Swedish dish for every month of the year. So I suppose it’s time to make pumpkin soup now.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

September 7, 2009

  • Pol

    It is the similar feeling here, even if now climate is more friendly, the temperature are more bearable and there is less humidity in the air then in the middle of the summer. So the sky, sea and everything around seems so fantasticly clear and it is easier to breathe and make some activities other then bathing in the sea, or eating ice-cream in the deep shadow of the trees. But somehow you know the cold and winter is coming, although every time of the year offers something unique and special.

  • Sara

    You are right, there are lots of good things about autumn. Today I saw the first yellow and red maple leaf, it’s beatuiful. And now I just reveived several kilos of lovely plums from my aunt’s garden. I think I actually have a chance of achieving my goal to become self-sufficient on jam this winter…

  • Pol

    It is interesting how this self-sufficiency works on psychology. I saw several times small animals in the forest how they collect or catch food and they even make a pose in this instance as they are proud and happy (!?), like some moment beetween life and death, in which life suddenly prevails (at least on one side). The other case is how food taste or seems litlle better when we alone prepare it (of course, if we haven`t made any major mistake :) .

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