We had a delicious Hunter’s Stew for dinner today. Sometimes it has come out rather grey when we have cooked it; this time I jointed my chicken but didn’t include the carcass (that got used to make a stock, along with the wingtips, leg-ends and skin). That measure, along with a bit of tomato puree to supplement the tinned and raw tomatoes resulted in a better coloured and equally tasty dish.

However, looking at the UK Seasonal Food Calendar, the ingredients I should be concentrating on should be:

Veg: carrots, cherries, elderflowers, lettuce, strawberries, peppers, asparagus, redcurrants, peas, rhubarb, gooseberries, tayberries, tomatoes, courgettes, broad beans

Meat: welsh lamb, crab, salmon, grey mullet

Chicken doesn’t get mentioned on the list at all, so I assume it counts as an all-year round meat (free-range and tasty too). We had tomatoes (from the Isle of Wight) and, for lunch, salad from the garden (if it grows out there, it is de facto seasonal). There are a few other fruit and veg I should look out for over the next couple of weeks though. I tend to limit most of my fruit and veg shopping to UK grown items (except bananas and one or two things from the continent) but must remember to look out for crops that are natural rather than forced to add extra flavour to the yearly cycle.

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