Winter

Winter, the season for warm soups, heavy casseroles and hot, spiced drinks enjoyed in front of the fire.

Make use of the wide range of root vegetables.

Vegetables

Best quality: Jerusalem artichoke; white beans, lima beans; beetroot; broccoli; Brussels sprouts; cabbage; carrots; cauliflower; celeriac; celery; kale; leeks; lettuce; onions; parsnip; potatoes; sea kale; shallot; turnip; watercress.

Available: avocado; French beans; chicory; endive; fennel; kohlrabi; mushroom; okra; pepper; salsify; squashes; sweet potato; zucchini.

Fruit

Best quality: apples; cranberries; pears; citrus fruits, such as grapefruits, lemons, limes, tangerines, clementines, satsumas, oranges, ugli; chestnuts, hazelnuts, and walnuts.

Available: bananas; coconut; dates; lychees; mangoes; persimmon; pineapple.

Meat

Beef and pork roasts, chops, calf’s liver, buffalo. Before refrigeration, pork used to be eaten fresh only in the winter months. This was also the time to make sausages

Poultry

Chicken, chicken livers – turkey – goose - Guinea fowl, though available through much of the year, is at its best from the second half of the winter.

Game

Hare, wild rabbit, farm rabbit is available all the year, partridge, pheasant, wild duck and venison.

Fish

Best quality: cod, dogfish, flounder, haddock, hake, halibut, mock halibut, plaice, skate, sea bream, sole, whiting, as white fish; carp, herring, mackerel, grey mullet, perch, pike, pilchard, sprat, as oily fish.

Available: turbot as white fish; conger eel, rainbow trout as oily fish.

Seafood

Clams, crab, lobster, prawns, shrimp.