GO BEYOND FOUR SEASONS
Each fruit and vegetable has its own season, with subtle shifts that happen every day. Follow their microseasons to unlock flavour at every stage.
In season today
The first harvests. Not yet available in abundance or fully developed, this is the time to get inspired by new flavour combinations.
Baby Leeks
Grower
Duncan
Location
Ormskirk, Lancashire
Seasonality
All Year Round
Beetroot (Badger Flamed)
Black Round Spanish Radishes
Blue Meat Radishes
Borettane Onions
Bramley Apples
Carrots (Sandy, Purple Haze, White Satin, Yellowstone & Ruby)
Collard Greens
Comice Pear
Crab Apples
Edible Flowers (Mixed, Viola, Cornflower)
Golden Delicious Apples
Granny Smith Apples
Green Kale
Iberiko Tomatoes
Kalibos Cabbage
Leafy Celeriac
Madernassa Pear
Mushroom Mix (Girolle, Trompette, Chanterelle)
Purple Kale
Purple Sprouting Broccoli
Radicchio Chioggia
Radicchio di Treviso
Radicchio di Verona
Red Amaranth
Red Dandelion
Red Meat Radishes
Red Moon Radish
Red Williams Pear
Savoy Cabbage
Shoots & Cresses – Tagete, Basil, Komatsuna (see app for all)
Spring Onions
Walnuts Dry
White Onions
PEAK SEASON BOX
Our Sourcing Team have selected the nine varieties tasting their best right now. From familiar favourites to lesser known varieties, these are our picks this week.
Kalettes – Clive, Cambridgeshire, UK
Crown Prince Squash – Clive, Cambridgeshire, UK
Purple Sprouting Broccoli – Ted and Martin, Worcestershire, UK
Radicchio Castelfranco – Luca, Veneto, Italy
Salsify – Louis, Loiret, France
Tokyo Turnip – Lazio, Italy
Purple Carrot – François, Dunkirk, France
Cime di Rapa – Puglia, Italy
Pomegranate Wonderful – Marco, Sicily, Italy
Kiwi Extra – Michele, Calabria, Italy
Featured This Week 15/11 - 22/11
EARLY
CLEMENTINE – TRADIZIONALE
Palagiano, Puglia
Nov-Feb
While we had previously been sourcing Clementines from Spain, we have now moved our supply entirely to Italy, and the Tradizionale variety that thrives in the south of the country, where the major differences between day and night time temperatures provoke sugar production in the fruit. We mostly source Clementines from Ciro, in Palagiano. Here, soil is sandy, and mixed with river rocks – the mineral mix produces exceptionally sweet fruit, which is not without typical citrus sharpness either, and is so in demand that it is protected by an IGP.
Tradizionale Clementines are known for their juicy combination of brightness and acidity. Ciro maximises these characteristics with his methods: he cares for an orchard of over 6,000 trees, of which 4,500 produce Clementines, treating each as though they were his only one. The trees are pruned annually, with intensity alternated across them to ensure supply, and treatment and intervention is minimal.
PEAK
PUMPKIN – DELICA
Mantua, Lombardy
Sep-Mar
We have almost reached the mid-point for Oscar’s Delicas. So far, the season has been a strong one, and though early batches of these pumpkins benefited from outdoor curing due to much warmer-than-usual temperatures in Mantua, those that followed, and were instead cured indoors as normal, have maintained the same very high quality. This is demonstrated by the Delica’s substantial flesh, which has a low moisture content, and is sweet and fudgy when cooked.
Oscar’s pumpkins are admired internationally for their superior texture and nutty taste. This can only be achieved via his observation of a number of very high standards at every stage of the farming process. These include rigorous curing – he tells us that this is a practice that no other company in Italy has ever adopted – as well as careful attention to the plants’ water supply. The pumpkins’ quality depends on a fine balance: they must receive just enough water to meet their needs, but no more.
Understanding exactly how this is done requires intimate knowledge of the land and the properties of its clay soil – and as a third generation grower on this farm, which, over time, has grown from 15 hectares to 600, Oscar is informed by the experiences of his father and grandfather before him.
LATE
GREEN CARA CARA
Scordia, Sicily
Oct-Nov
Carmelo’s Cara Caras will turn from green to orange soon, meaning that the essential oils present in their zest, and the fragrant aromas that define them at this early stage, will soon transform as they mature. It has been a strong year for our Green Citrus in general – yields were high and flavours especially potent – so these Cara Caras, with their striking pink flesh and bittersweet juice, really should be experienced in their current state while it is still possible.
The Green Citrus category was established back in 2009 when our founder Franco identified the culinary uses of green – that is, unripe – Bergamots, and brought them to London’s kitchens. Previously prized only by the perfume industry, we knew that the unique essential oils present in the fruit’s zest at this stage of its maturation process had special culinary potential.
Four years later, our founder Franco found himself at a restaurant on the Amalfi Coast. He slipped into a citrus grove behind it, and saw green-skinned oranges hanging from its trees. He clipped a couple away from the branch, and wondered whether it were not only bergamots that had different uses at their green, technically unripe stage. Could the idea be applied to citrus more widely? From there, we began working with Carmelo in Scordia to harvest green citrus fruits for their untapped potential – and this year, we added Green Cedro and Green Kumquats to our line-up, proving that Green Citrus is going from strength to strength.
Go Deeper
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Now is the time for action. Join the food system revolution.
Go beyond four seasons
Each fruit and vegetable has its own season, with subtle shifts which happen every day. Follow their microseasons to unlock flavour at every stage.
WHAT’S IN SEASON?
Know where your food comes from
We know the name of the people behind everything we source. Recognise their growing artistry to find out exactly where your food comes from (and why that matters).
MEET THE GROWERS
Make your diet diverse
Our growers work with varieties chosen for quality and nutrition, not yield. By selecting their crops you keep heritage seeds in play, add to ecosystem biodiversity and preserve unique flavours.
PEAK SEASON BOX
United Kingdom
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