Food For Kids Podcast episode 2: Foods in season in June

Hello and welcome to the first proper episode of the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. If you got a chance to listen to the trailer episode, one of the things that I mentioned is that quite a lot of what I do is based around getting people to eat more seasonal food. And there's a bunch of reasons for this. Basically to summarise, it's a bit better for the environment, it's a bit better for your budget and it's also quite often a really good way to introduce more variety into your diet throughout the year and help children to accept new fruits and vegetables because they taste the best when you introduce them if they are in season.

So in order to help with that, basically on the first episode of each month, I'm going to do a quick solo run through some of the things that are in season in the UK during that month. That will be mostly things that are homegrown crops in season in the UK, but also things that we can't grow here, could never grow here because of the climate, but they're in season in their country of origin at the moment and they are imported in peak condition during this month.

So it's just quick run through of some fruits and vegetables that you could try if you want to try and eat a little bit more seasonal food. So at the beginning of each month I'll give you a bit of information about the foods and then during the rest of the month there'll be some opportunities to find some recipes and some ways to get kids involved with them. So here's our first list for June.

So June is the month where everything starts to take off. It's been 10 or more weeks since the soil started to warm up enough for seeds to germinate in the ground, and for flowers to open and be pollinated for fruit. So now we're starting to have a much wider choice of new fresh foods to eat.

So the first and most obvious group of foods when you think about June and Wimbledon and summer fates and so on is berries and currants. So for blueberries, strawberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants and raspberries, June really is the first month that you can get UK grown berries that haven't used tons of heat and light in greenhouses to grow and that really tastes like proper juicy berries.

So blueberries get a lot of good press as like superfoods, and they do have a lot going for them because their blue colour is a bit rarer in food than some other colours. And with that blue or purple colour comes an antioxidant called anthocyanin. Antioxidants are those compounds which help your body to repair damage to cells. So we want to try and get a good range of different ones in our diet to do different repair jobs. And those are associated with different colours in foods. But although we get anthocyanin from blueberries, there is also lots of anthocyanin in blackberries in the autumn, blackcurrants, cherries, raspberries and red grapes. So if your child isn't keen on blueberries you can just offer them periodically to build their familiarity but find one of those other fruits instead that they do like. Nature does generally provide more than one way to get something into your diet.

Strawberries really are starting to be gorgeous now and you might be able to have a fun trip to a pick your own farm this month if there's one nearby. If not then look out for more locally grown strawberries in the shops nearby. If your child isn't keen on them, trying them in season when they are super juicy really can make a big difference.

It's more or less the end of the season for asparagus. Asparagus really does have a very short season and that's because those little spears that we eat are actually the beginning of the shoot of the plant. So during the winter the plant dies right back and the soil is completely bare and then these shoots come up through the soil like these weird little alien fingers and that's what we cut is the beginning of those shoots. But obviously if we kept cutting those all through the year the plant wouldn't be able to grow at all and it wouldn't be able to put any energy back into next year's plants. So asparagus would be a one season crop. Whereas actually asparagus plants will last around 20 years if you look after them. So what we do is we cut some of the first shoots of the year and then we allow them to grow up and they will get like six foot tall these weird ferny things and then we allow them to grow so that they can photosynthesise enough energy to put back into the soil for next year and then that's how you get next year's crop. So if you google a picture of an asparagus plant you'll be amazed at how tall it gets. So for that reason asparagus is really only in season from when it first starts coming up which is late March /early April until June the 21st which is the traditional day where we stop cutting asparagus and most people don't cut it after that.

So it really is quite a short season and best to get hold of it now while it's not phenomenally expensive and it will taste better too. So make the most of the last three weeks of seasonal asparagus before it starts to dwindle out.

It's also more or less the end of the season for local rhubarb and elderflowers which peter out towards the end of June. Rhubarb, like asparagus, needs to be picked less now so that the energy can be sent down to the crown for next year. So farmers will tend to pick it less after June and it will become more expensive.

And elderflowers are starting to turn into elderberries now so if you really wanted to do some fun picking of elderflowers and making cordial now the next couple of weeks is pretty much your last chance.

And then new potatoes are in season now as well. had the very early Jersey ones in May and now we're onto a wider variety of small new potatoes. It's best to eat them with their skins on if you can because the skins have quite a lot of fibre in them and because they've got that lovely earthy taste from the early season and they're quite thin skins, they are quite nice to eat with the skins on but if you need to peel them you can usually just scrape the skins off rather than having to peel and lose a lot of the potato, there is really nothing like the taste of a new potato with a little bit of butter so it's quite nice for children to see the difference between the fluffy potatoes that they get later in the season for chips or mashed potatoes and the sort of more waxy taste  of an early new potato.

Lettuces and salad leaves are now in full swing and you should be able to get some lovely salad mixes locally if you're lucky enough to have a greengrocer or a market nearby but if not, if your child doesn't really like salad but you want them to have a go with it then a really good way is to pick two different types of leaf and run a comparison. So say you get like a little gem or an iceberg that's something that's more familiar to them from what they have on a burger bun and then compare it with something a bit more unusual like one of those crinkly red ones or something like rocket which is also in season and then get them to compare them and tell you what they think. Because they're not trying to decide whether they like it or not they're just saying which one they prefer or describing it there's less pressure.

And then another way to get children to try lettuce is by trying two dips, but with one type of leaf. So if you had like a ranch and a French dressing and you dip the same leaf into both and then compare and talk about what the dips are like, you can use one dip that you know that they like alongside one they haven't tried before. And then while they're discussing the dips, they are at the same time eating some lettuce and becoming more familiar with the lettuce. So that's just like a cute and fun way that you can get kids to eat salad, even if they don't like having salad on their plate.

And if you want to try something green but they're not keen on raw greens but you want to try something different, Pak Choi is in season now. So you can stir fry that and it's quite nice they can compare the texture between the soft sort of floppy steamed leaves and the crunchy stems. If they watch them cook they might be surprised how much the leafy parts wilt down and the stems don't really change shape much.

Mushrooms grow most of the year round in indoor cultivation so they are in season now. Mushrooms can be quite a hard sell for kids because of their squeaky texture although some kids do love them. We're going to have some episodes coming up about how to encourage children to eat some of those more challenging flavours or textures and mushrooms will be one of those that we cover.

And now is the beginning of courgette season. So if you grow them, you'll have a few baby ones coming through. And don't forget you can eat the flowers. They're really lovely fried in a light batter or stuffed with cream cheese. If you don't grow them, you will start to notice the prices coming down in the shops and markets for the next few months.

French beans also start to be available in late June. So you might find that you can get some of the UK grown ones instead of the imported ones from about this month. A good small task for kids in the kitchen is to snap the stem end off the beans because it's quite a satisfying snapping feeling and it builds their familiarity up even if they're not going to eat them afterwards.

Broccoli is also coming into season now, the regular green fluffy headed one that we see in the shops which is the calabrese types. The purple sprouting types and the tender stem ones are more or less finished now. If you have some broccoli you can ask your child to pull off or snip off the florets from a head of broccoli when you're preparing it. They might also be interested in the fact (or you might!) that we can also eat the stalks. Broccoli stalks are actually packed with nutrition. If you just slice off the gnarly outside bits and slice them thinly, they're lovely in stir fry or you can steam them and stick them into your cauliflower or broccoli cheese. Just make them smaller pieces than the florets, obviously because they're denser and they need more time to cook through or pre-steam them before you put them in or pop them in the microwave with a splash of water.

So that's the UK grown fruits and vegetables. I've got some seasonal imports for you that come from other countries because of the tropical climates but that we like to eat here and that currently in season. So bananas and plantain basically are in season much of the year round because of the way that they're grown so you can have your bananas in your lunchbox.

Pineapple although you can actually buy pineapple all year round because of the way that they're stored. They're in peak season from sort of March to July-ish, so we're right in the middle of it now. And it's always quite fun for children to see the difference between an actual pineapple and the rings that you get in a tin.

It's right at the beginning of the season for all kinds of melons, but even though it's quite early on, you might notice that the prices are starting to fall now, or they might take slightly less time to ripen up when you get them home.

And although it's too early in the season for UK nectarines and peaches, you might be able to find some cheaper priced imported nectarines knocking about from now.

And then finally, the first, the watermelons, they'll be a bit smaller and a bit more expensive because it's the beginning of the season, but you will start to get this season's juicy watermelons coming through.

So that's my summary of the foods that are in season this month. I hope that's given you something nice to put on your shopping list this week. And next week I'll run through a few easy child-friendly family recipes that you can use these foods in.

If you want a full list of the foods in season, go to thefoodies.org and click on free stuff and you'll find there's a page with June foods and activities in it. We also sell some bright, fun printables with characters on them on the website for a couple of quid. There are lists you can put on the fridge each month to encourage children to choose some of the foods to buy and explore.

So I hope you enjoyed this list of things to seek out in the shops next month. I'll see you on the next episode on Thursday when I'll be talking to Kate Hall from The Full Freezer about what to do if you want to use your freezer to save time and money but batch cooking just is not your bag. So I'll see you then and in the meantime, happy eating!

0.00 Introduction to seasonal foods

1.31 Seasonal fruit and veg in June grown in the UK

9.02 Seasonal fruit and veg in June imported