No, this post isn’t about food allergies, intolerances, eating disorders, or medically-prescribed diets. It’s not about being vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian, or omnivorous either.
Lately Drew and I have had a silly series of conversations about the rules we’ve come up with for what we eat, when we eat it, and how we eat it.
For example, I divide food by the seasons. I don’t always strictly follow these meal plans, of course, but I do have a tendency to shift my eating habits from one season to the next. It simply feels weird to eat spaghetti in August or “fresh” strawberries in January!
Summer food is stuff like corn on the cob, any kind of seafood, many salads, stone fruit, any kind of melon, cold pasta salads, zucchini bread, popsicles, (vegan) ice cream, ice water, and other refreshing, light dishes.
Autumn food is stuff like apples, pears, light soups, small portions of meat, banana bread, occasional cups of tea, stir fries, pies, and roasted vegetables.
Winter food is stuff like chili and other thick, hearty soups, many cups of tea, potatoes and other root vegetables, fruit smoothies, spaghetti, and very meat-heavy dishes.
Spring food is stuff like berries, some salads, fish, eggs, asparagus, occasional cups of tea, and pasta.
I don’t really see any difference between breakfast, lunch and dinner foods. I’ll happily eat eggs and toast for dinner or tilapia and vegetables for breakfast depending on what I have in the fridge and what sounds good that particular day.
What about you? What are your food rules?
I totally understand dividing food by season. I do this as well. This is probably a product of growing up in a rural community with lots of farmers and having a garden myself. We have to eat stuff when it is in season!
Your list of seasonally appropriate foods pretty much matches mine. Though I’ll eat banana bread and/or zucchini bread at any time of the year. 🙂
Chili is definitely a late fall and winter food. That first really chilly and rainy fall day definitely calls for a hot bowl of chili with cheese and cornbread. Ham and bean soup is another fall and winter food. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten chili or bean soup in spring or summer. It just wouldn’t be right.
It is interesting that you don’t distinguish between breakfast, lunch and supper. My parents are like that. They will eat a sandwich for breakfast no problem, but I just can’t do that. For me breakfast is probably the meal I have the most “rules” for. I like things like oatmeal, yogurt, fruit, toast, or biscuits for breakfast. Muffins, french toast, and pancakes are weekend breakfast items.
Oddly enough, I will eat breakfast food for supper sometimes. I like to cook up eggs, sausage, and biscuits for a quick supper. I’ve even done pancakes for supper.
I think you’re right about that, Sarah! My parents had a garden as well when we lived in homes with the space for one. We were also sometimes given food from other people’s gardens, and we grocery shopped based on what was on sale as well. All of this leads to a fairly season-dependent diet like you said. What’s in season tends to be the cheapest option for produce most of the time.
I suspect that I think of banana bread as a cold weather food because bananas were one of our staples at that time of year as far as fruit goes. Whenever we didn’t eat bananas before they got really mushy, mom made bread of out them to avoid food waste. We didn’t really eat them much during the summer.
I have absolutely no food rules regarding weekdays versus weekends. Your story about that was fascinating!
And pancakes for dinner are delicious. 😀
The reason why I think of pancakes, muffins, french toast, biscuits and gravy as weekend breakfast is because they take longer to make. During the week when I was growing up, weekday mornings were busy with everyone getting ready for work or school so we just had to eat something quick. However, on the weekends we had more time, so we could have “special” breakfast usually on Saturday morning.