Talk:Seasonal food calendar (Northern Hemisphere)

I think Peaches & Nectarines are more July & Auust, not September... Anyone agree? (Mike.hinson 22:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC))

could the calander split into more subdevisions & could we have a range for each food? Not sure how, any suggestions? (Mike.hinson 22:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC))

Maybe the seasonality of foods depends, roughly, on latitude so perhaps several bands of latitude would suffice?

I am in the UK, perhaps we could start off with food available in the UK, but include imported foods? or colour code entries according to regional availability? Perhaps the Nothern hemisphere will all be very similar. (Mike.hinson 10:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC))

regional differences
I think that this page is fraught with problems. You can't really speak of seasonal foods outside of the context of your region... northern and southern hemisphere seasonal foods will be nearly flipped, and even the concept of a season is pretty nebulous. I think we need to come up with a different way to approach this topic. --Grahamtalk/mail/ e 18:53, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Excellent point. I agree, we'll have to make separate charts for various parts of the world. I'm in Florida, eating a navel orange in August. This would normally be impossible, had the orange not been shipped from South Africa. Maybe we could start by finding locations that are famous for shipping out certain foods, like Vidalia, Georgia and start making charts listing those foods. Then we can fill in details with foods that come from many places. Gary 19:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * That's starting to sound like original research, though... --Grahamtalk/mail/ e 19:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd imagine all this stuff is already written down somewhere. Gary 20:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps the food & origin should be quoted, e.g. navel oranges South Africa - then there is only need for one chart. Perhaps the article could have a calander section & also a more expanded entry for each item so reference can be cited? Mike.hinson 17:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

UK foods in season
Here's an interesting site http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/in_season/index.shtml

Perhaps some other countries have similar and this article could provide the required links? Fenton Robb 19:12, 24 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Fantastic, this is exactly the type of thing I was talking about yesterday. I haven't found one for the US, though any lists would probably give regions within the US. It looks like eattheseasons.co.uk is planning something for North America, but they haven't finished it yet. Gary 20:24, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Glad you like the notion - I am just a newbie at wiki and don't have the courage to scrap the present article and start a new one along the lines suggested - are you game to do it? Fenton Robb

The article would look a bit dull if it consisted of nothing but links to various countries web sites, so what about an introductory piece about why foods are seasonal - about what triggers the changes that make food available? Another bit of interest might be a section about how international trade and particularly air freight, riding at low cost in the holds of passager aircraft, have made produce available out of season to the wealthier nations? And how methods of packaging and preservation have made out of season marketing possible? Mention might be made of the economic effects of this trade on the producer countries. Another aspect of the food in season topic is the creation of artificial conditions to overcome natural seasonality - cultivation of fruit and vegetables in plastic tunnels etc.

Another sourse of informatoin might be guides used for training supermarket produce buyers, if anyone can get hold of something along those lines? And thinking about that, mention might be made of the primum price that the added value of produce out of (natural) season can command. What do you think? Fenton Robb 00:07, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Restructure Idea
I was just thinking as I added rasberries & blackberries that an easy way to make this work would be to say where the food was in season. It is easy to buy fruit from all over the world so I would guess most people are intrested in where the fruit is in season. e.g uk-plums (supose i should add that too unless anyone beats me to it. if this starts to work can anyone suggest a way to show the range of dates for which the item is in season?? also can anyone explain why the table shows as the last item on the page when the edit shows the external links as the last item? (Mike.hinson 20:36, 14 September 2006 (UTC)).