Fruits and Vegetables of the Season

It appears that my recollections of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s are resonating with many readers of a similar vintage to your humble narrator (I pride myself on being humble — you’ll have to go a long way to out-humble me). Happily, these tales are also proving to be of interest to younger readers who contact me saying, “I never knew that!”

Things have changed so much since those days of yore. For example, these days, if you want any kind of fruit or vegetable at any time of the year, all you need to do is run down to your local supermarket to find it on display. You want strawberries on Christmas Day? No problem!

Things were very different when I was a kid growing up in the 1960s. In those days, you could buy only those fruits and vegetables that were currently in season. For example, you couldn’t get strawberries before May or after September. Meanwhile, blackberries, gooseberries, and raspberries didn’t appear on the greengrocer’s shelves until June.

One vegetable you could get most of the time in England was the humble potato. Having said this, from around the end of summer to the start of the following spring, the only type of potatoes available were the big ones, which we called “old potatoes.” After a while, we started to miss “new potatoes,” which are young, small, freshly harvested potatoes with tender skins.

Sometime in April, a handwritten sign on a piece of cardboard would appear in the greengrocer’s shop window at the bottom of the road. This sign would proudly proclaim, “New Potatoes!!! Here on Saturday!!!” (The enthusiastic use of exclamation marks reflected the level of everybody’s excitement.)

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but younger ladies like my Auntie Barbara used to carry their shopping in big canvas bags. Meanwhile, older women used to drag trolley dollies around. What’s a trolley dolly? Try to imagine a top-opening, soft-sided suitcase on wheels with a long handle protruding from the top. That’s a trolley dolly!

On the Saturday morning in question, I would be woken by what sounded like a rampaging herd of wild buffalo. When I looked out of my bedroom window, my brain was boggled by what I saw. There wasn’t even a baby buffalo in sight. Instead, there was a stampede of little old ladies, which — in my experience — can be much more frightening.

The ones heading down the hill were moving at high speed. Their faces were set in grim determination as they barreled over anyone foolish enough to get in their way. In contrast, those leisurely making their way back up the road wore satisfied smirks. Their trolley dollies were packed to the brim with new potatoes, and they were practically cackling with glee.

Once the little old lady frenzy had quietened down, Mum and I would stroll down the road to do our own shopping. The following day, for Sunday Dinner, we would pile our plates high with new potatoes that had been boiled with a spring of fresh mint plucked from our garden. We slathered them with my dad’s homemade brown gravy. Those potatoes were delicious! They were the best potatoes of the year!

If someone describes people as being “like peas in a pod,” they mean those people are similar in the way they look, the way they dress, or their personalities. Where did this expression come from? I’m glad you asked.

One of my favorite vegetables is sweet green peas. When I was a kid staying at Auntie Barbara’s during the day, we didn’t buy bags of frozen peas. Why? Well, none of the shops near us sold any type of frozen food (I’d never even heard of such a thing), and — even if they had — my aunt didn’t have a freezer in which to store them (see also Toasty Fridges and Frosty Frozen Peas).

If we wanted peas during the autumn (fall) and winter months, the only options were to open a can of tinned peas, which were tasteless (ugh!), or boil a bag of dried peas, which ended up as a pile of green mush on your plate (double ugh!).

It wasn’t until May that fresh garden peas became available at the greengrocers. These came in green pods about half an inch in diameter and four inches long. Each pod contained around 5 to 10 peas, all looking identical, which is why people say, “like peas in a pod.”

As soon as we saw the first fresh peas of the season on one of our shopping outings, Auntie Barbara would beam with happiness and buy a great big bagful.

Once we were back at her house, my cousin Gillian and I would sit on the wooden bench in the back garden with a bowl between us, podding (shelling) the peas. When you squeeze the sides of a peapod, it splits open, revealing the tasty treats contained within. Then you run your finger down the inside of the pod to release its contents and transfer them into the bowl.

Gillian and I would spend the next couple of hours podding the peas. We spent the time engaging in interesting conversations. I might start the ball rolling by pointing out that I was much better at podding peas because I was a year older and therefore a year wiser.

Gillian might respond that I was being silly because anyone could see she’d podded at least twice as many peas as I had. I might reply that she reminded me of a monkey, except that a monkey would be much better at podding peas. And… before we knew it… we were done!

The funny thing was that after we’d finished, although we had a huge pile of pods, we ended up with only a very small bowl of peas (and we’d hardly eaten any at all).

On the one hand, it’s nice to be able to get whatever you want whenever you want it. On the other hand, there is something to be said for the way things used to be. For example, when you haven’t had even a hint of a whiff of a sniff of a strawberry for six or seven months from October through April, then nothing tastes quite as good as the first strawberries of the season in May.

How about you? Did you, like me, grow up eating only the fruits and vegetables of the season, or have you always had access to anything you wanted when you wanted it? And which do you think is best?

As always, I welcome your captivating comments, querulous questions, and sagacious suggestions, all of which you can share on Hackster's "Throwback Thursdays" Discord channel. I look forward to seeing you there.

P.S. Don't forget that you can peruse and ponder all of my Throwback Thursdays columns here.

P.P.S. Please feel free to email me at max@clivemaxfield.com if you have any questions about this column or if you have any requests or suggestions for future articles.