Cooking with Seasonal, Regional Food

Have you ever cooked a meal of entirely seasonal and regional foods? Before last week, I really don't think I had.

Walking through the supermarket these days, you will see food coming from all around the world. Though it certainly convenient -- hey, it gives North Americans the ability to eat strawberries in December -- this global food market is also impacting the environment. Did you know that 90% of bananas eaten by people in the United States are grown in South America? How do these millions of bananas get to the U.S. from Brazil? And how do strawberries, seasonal only in summertime, magically appear in the produce section year-round? Let's just say some of your food may have more frequent flier miles than you do. Food is being shipped around the world for buyer convenience, but at the expense of the environment.

As if there weren't enough things to feel guilty about!

I was always overwhelmed by this fact. I felt helpless. Certainly I couldn't change the system. But I don't necessarily have to comply with it either.

When my Eating San Francisco class was assigned the final project of cooking a delicious dish of all seasonal, regional foods, I had a brief moment of panic. Cooking for me usually involves a trip to the grocery store and the use of at least SOME packaged or processed foods. I decided to check out a local farmers market and I hoped something would fall into place.


Lucky for me, my local farmers market was extremely local: USF recently started having a farmers market on weekends and, living on campus, it just doesn't get more convenient than that.

There I found an abundance of food that I would feel guilt-free about eating. Fruits and vegetables that come from local farms are not shipped halfway around the world, and the money goes directly to support small farmers and their families. And of course there are also your fresh meats, eggs, and dairy products. At a farmers market and you can assume the animals were treated way better than any you'll find at the supermarket.

At the farmers market, I met up with local food lover and recent USF alum Lulu McAllister, who secretly wishes she was in Eating San Francisco. She advised me on some ingredients to pick out, and we devised a sort of recipe for a fava bean dip with pita bread and feta cheese.

I put my recipe in a Flickr set. I think it makes more sense visually.

Look at all the delicious dishes my classmates made!!!

Thanks for the great semester ESF!

Heart of the City

The outside market that takes place in the U.N. Plaza every Wednesday and Sunday is called the Heart of the City Farmers Market. I couldn't think of a better name for it if I tried, for it truly is a place where the heart and soul of San Francisco shines.


The farmers market seems to be a place for everyone in the city to come together. Whether we're rich or poor, white, black, Latino, Asian, old, young, all or none of the above, we all have to eat.

What we choose to eat has become a very complicated issue in this day and age.

Locally grown? Organic? Fair trade? Genetically engineered? Pesticide free? Cage free? Steroid free? Hormone free?

It's enough to make one's head spin.

To further complicate things, the world has gone into a Global Food Crisis.

The price of staple foods such as corn, soybeans, rice, and bread have become so unmanageably high that thousands of people around the world are starving. Such a tragedy that is leading to much suffering and political unrest. Just awful.

* * *

Needless to say, I feel blessed to be able to enjoy whatever foods I want, whenever I want.

Not only is a plethora of food available to me at farmers markets, grocery stores, restaurants, vending machines, and the USF cafeteria, but also the affordability of said foods has never been an issue for me.

While this is without doubt a blessing, there seems to be something almost unnatural about not having to struggle for food.
I have never once had to worry about where my next meal was coming from.
It's just something to think about.

* * *

After spending a day perusing through the Heart of the City Farmers Market, soaking up the sun, examining all the fresh produce, watching people scrutinize long, slender carrots and bunches of leafy kale, I settled by the fountain to enjoy a hot black bean tamale and a plump pink lady apple.

Food is a surprisingly complicated issue, but one thing I know is that food should be enjoyed and appreciated.