We’ve been living in the West Indies for such a long time that it takes some time to readjust to proper seasons and all that each season brings – both trials and tribulations.

Perhaps the biggest of the challenges is going grocery shopping.  I know that this sounds funny but really, it is a challenge!  Here in the BVI, where almost every food product is imported (including bananas and mangoes), we’re accustomed to being able to get a wide range of produce year-round. Bell peppers, strawberries (that taste of nothing more than cotton-wool for the most part, I grant you), swedes, a few varieties of melons & apples are almost always to be found on the shelves.  Not necessarily tasting great, or in the best of shape, but they are all still there.

In France we can only buy what is in season at the time.  Now, don’t get me wrong – this isn’t a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination.  But it is difficult to get used to only being able to buy vegetables in the season in which it grows naturally in France.  I am happy with the trade-off ….. who wouldn’t prefer to have produce that, in many cases, was only picked from the bush/plucked from the sea/dug from the ground first thing this morning or, at worst, last night?  We enjoy this bounty 6 days a week in Sainte-Foy as Monday – Friday there is always a vegetable stall, and often two or three, in La Place de la Mairie and every Saturday we have our weekly market, which fills several streets with stalls laden with fruit & vegetables, fish & shellfish, olives & spices, meat, poultry & charcuterie products, live plants, wine, milk & cheeses …….. you get the picture.  Seasonal abundance.  An embarrassment of good food.

But, when you’re not used to it (buying fresh food seasonally), it takes some adaptation.  In France you can’t simply decide that tonight you’ll have a stir fry with fresh bean sprouts, bok choy and whatever else takes your fancy and tomorrow you’ll have steak & ale pie with mashed neeps & tatties (yellow turnip and potatoes, for the non-Gælic speaker), and with friends round for dinner the next night you’ll start with some fresh asparagus … You get my drift.  In France, or at least in our bit of it, if it isn’t in season in France (or a French overseas departement) you don’t have that wide variety available.  However, you do know that when the strawberries are in season they are superb and well-priced and the same applies across the produce board.

There are the same (but not as widely marked) variations to be found in the cheeses that are available.  Here in the BVI it’s the same selection year-round, with a few extra special cheeses at Christmas. In France you get Brebis de Printemps at Easter, but an aged Brebis is generally available year-round.  I could go on, but you know what I mean.

There is one other aspect of food shopping that is astonishingly different: in France the shelves are stocked full all of the time (and I love the little produce-misting gadgets that keep everything fresh and moist), whereas here half the time they’re empty, or only full of one brand of something.  In life there will always be trade-offs.  The challenge is learning to enjoy them.