One of Aesop’s fables is called The Ant and the Grasshopper. It’s about an ant who spends most of the year gathering food to store away for the winter, and a grasshopper who spends most of the year dancing and singing instead of gathering food. However, when winter finally arrives, the grasshopper comes knocking on the ant’s door looking for food because he had foolishly not stored any away himself.
Of course in the end the ant welcomes the grasshopper in, and the grasshopper says he has learnt his lesson so he won’t be without food again, and everyone lives happily ever after. But the moral of the story is to make sure you are prepared for whatever might lie ahead.
And while that might be most obvious lesson to learn from the story, there are also a few lessons I’ve learned about food and winter through doing my winter meal planning.
See, I never really liked winter. In fact, I still don’t really. It’s cold, and dreary, and often raining. It just feels bleh.
And my meal plans felt the same: mundane, repetitive, and uninspiring (because I loooove ‘fresh’ foods and salads, not casseroles and stews). It’s hard work making a plan when you just. don’t. want. to. A bit like the grasshopper I guess – just sing and dance the day away because it’s easier than actually getting the job done.
To me, winter seemed pointless. It was just an annoying blip in my quest for eternal summers and good weather. But when I started my vegetable garden I discovered that winter is actually really important.
For many plants and animals, winter means hibernation. They’ve stored up their energy over autumn and they’ve got enough to carry them right through winter and into spring. Some of them even grow extra thick fur coats to keep them warm.
Now, us humans don’t need to get extra hairy, we have clothes for that (thankfully!), and we can’t really hibernate for 3 months, but we do need seasons of rest. Since we started urbanising everyone in a bid to simplify and make life more efficient, we’ve lost the need for seasons, because our 8-10 hour working days still carry on no matter what time of year or season it is.
I live in a place where it doesn’t get so cold in winter that nothing will grow in my garden, but what I do have planted doesn’t need a whole lot of attention, and there’s definitely no big harvests. That work was done in summer and autumn and was prepared and preserved ready to store away.
Our bodies weren’t designed to go at 100% all the time. So winter serves as a good reminder to slow down, take a breath, and prepare for the coming season. Although we are crazy busy right now with kid’s sports I’m still taking time to slow down – I’m reading more, I’ve planned ALL my winter meals and bought the food, and I’m crafting more. All things that don’t necessarily fit into a busy summer life of growth.
Along with the urbanisation of our society came the global food system which allowed us to ability to access all foods all of the time, and it dramatically changed the way we ate.
Eating is actually a survivial mechanism, and way back in the cavemen days, food would have been scarce in the winter months so our bodies naturally tried to store as much energy as possible to get through the cold season. We go looking for those really high-fat, rich meals because that’s what our body still thinks it needs, even though food accessibility means we now just usually eat our favourite foods when we prepare a meal.
It also meant that the high-fat food was helping to keep our bodies warm in the cold winter temperatures because we burned more energy trying to keep warm, so with more in reserve there was more to use!
The other side of having all food available all the time, is that in nature, we don’t actually have perpetual access to all food. When I picked up some snow peas at the supermarket once and the packet said they were from Africa, I knew there was a problem!
In my garden, I have fresh tomatoes to eat from late December to mid-April. After that the plants die off and it’s too cold to grow any more. In the height of summer it’s often too hot to successfully grow brocolli, cauliflower and cabbages, so these are usually left until the weather cools down a bit. So you won’t ever see my eating fresh tomatoes and broccoli at the same time!
By the end of tomato season, I feel like I’ve had my fill of tomatoes and I’m ready to move on to something new. Winter gives me (and my body!) the opportunity to take a breather from the onslaught of food available during summer and autumn, and prepare in anticipation for the coming season. And I’ll tell you, the excitement is palpable by spring!
Casseroles, stews and slow-cooker meals have never been my favourite, but by keeping them confined to winter it means I know there’s a beginning and an end to my not-so-favourite meals and it makes the thought of them more manageable.
I don’t ever get bored of the same meals over and over because I know they’re going to all change again after the three months of winter are over. Of course we always include our favourites, but even those get spread out now as we have so many favourites to choose from!
Seasons are necessary, bring refreshment and create balance.
When I first started meal planning and eating according to the seasons, I didn’t look forward to winter. It’s the season I enjoy the least and I would wish it away as quickly as it came. But I’ve learned to appreciate the slowness of the winter season and the lesson it brings with it.
Because, what good is the warmth of summer without the cold of winter to appreciate it’s sweetness – John Steinbeck.
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