On the Weird Joy of Knowing What’s in Season

This app tells you what foods are at local peak deliciousness

August 24, 2017 9:00 am

For a very long time, a great meal meant one thing: a big, hunking piece of meat on your plate. 

The bigger, the better. The saltier, the better. In other words: the more Zantac, the better. 

But then came vegetables and grains and a funny thing happened: health became wealth, and literally so. These days, the new luxury is eating “clean” and letting everyone around you know. 

Which isn’t necessarily bad, even if utterly annoying.

But beyond social status there is something to be truly gained with the new age of healthfulness: an education on eating seasonal. Because trendy or not, there is nothing more impressive to your correspondent than a person who’s able to tell me what’s in season. 

For those of us without encyclopedic food knowledge, there’s the Seasonal Food Guide. It’s a nifty new app that tells you what fresh produce you should be eating, wherever you are. Think of it as the Farmer’s Almanac for the iPhone generation. 

The app — which is also available on Android — is a companion to the online database of the same name. All you’ve gotta do is punch in your state and time of year (i.e. early September), and the site rolls out what locally-grown produce is at its peak.

In my home state of Illinois, for example, I now know ground cherries and Asian pears are currently at their most delicious. Hey,  you learn something new everyday. And having all that info on-the-go? Now that’s clutch.

If anything, it’s the perfect little companion to help guide the ever-looming question “what’s for dinner?”

Something great, of course. 

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