With a new season comes fresh produce

Now that winter has pretty clearly been beaten back by the warm winds of spring, it’s almost time to start enjoying the season’s agricultural bounty. Some of the most succulent fruits and vegetables will be hitting store shelves and farmers’ markets in the coming weeks, and no one will want to pass up the soft tastes and bright colors offered by spring’s bounty.

Though we normally think of root vegetables as being the food of choice in colder months, a whole rainbow of them – turnips, beets, radishes, carrots and new potatoes – are part of the spring harvest.

Bulbs like leeks, sweet onions, green garlic and scallions, which are also known as “spring onions,” also start coming up.

And stalk vegetables do their part; cardoons, celery and fiddlehead ferns round out the green end of their spectrum, while fennel is shaded white and rhubarb deep red.  
Fruits get in on the action too, though usually in late spring.

Large amounts of citrus fruits such as grapefruit, lemons and navel oranges are still rolling along from the winter harvest, though they’re nearing the end of their season.
Apricots start in late spring and peak in July, while strawberries, raspberries and cherries are ripe by June.

The best way to eat the fruits and vegetables of spring is with as little preparation as possible. Most have mildly tangy or sweet flavors that your tongue will like just fine raw.

Excessive cooking also ruins bright colors, so be sure to steam or stir-fry.
Green salads are an option, and root vegetables can be thrown together to make a very bright potato salad. Dried apricots make a sweet snack, and I especially like to blend strawberries and raspberries into refreshing smoothies or drop them on top of cereal.

If you want to find fruits and vegetables that are fresh as well as cheap, the Bloomington Community Farmer’s Market is your best bet because prices don’t get jacked up by long transit costs.
Small farms often don’t use industrial pesticides either, especially if someone is selling from a personal garden.
However, local is not a guarantee of organic, so if that’s important to you, be sure to ask. The market is now open from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday in the Showers Common.  
Another place to find fresh spring produce at a reliably cheaper price is ethnic markets.

Sahara Mart is a good place to start, but dig deeper and check out the myriad Asian and South American markets that dot our city.

This is an especially good idea if you want to try some of the more obscure spring veggies such as kohlrabi, a turnip-like vegetable that is native to Germany but is now extremely popular in southwest Asia. 

Now I realize we college kids are famous for not eating our fruits and vegetables unless they’re on top of a pizza or blended with shots of alcohol.

But the lovely colors and flavors of spring give you a good excuse to eat them every day and as unadulterated as possible.