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Munch your way through March
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Fruit
Vegetables
Fish
Meat
March may not be the most exciting month on the food front, but it does have compensations in the form of rhubarb, purple sprouting broccoli and shellfish. Dee McQuillan reports.
Fruit
The fine, forced rhubarb from Yorkshire is well into its swing and there may be early crops of ordinary outdoor rhubarb before March is out.
That's it for home-grown fruit, of course.
Citrus to look for includes the tail end of supplies of traditional Italian blood oranges and those aromatic modern crossbreeds ortanique (orange/tangerine) and minneola (grapefruit/tangerine).
The famous Windward Island bananas, which are small but full-flavoured, are available.
Another star import is pineapple from the Ivory Coast and Costa Rica.
Recipes to try
Vegetables
Slender, home-grown purple sprouting broccoli is a high point in a month when few vegetables brave the March gales. A few lucky people may be able to buy the white sprouting version.
And a very few will be cooking sea kale, a neglected native delicacy that is mainly fine white stem.
Spring greens and spring onions arrive true to form (the spring in spring rolls is a bit more puzzling).
Later in the month, look out for sweet new-season carrots.
Squeaky fresh French or Jersey caulis also come in towards the end of the month.
Weather permitting, supplies of minute and very pricey Jersey Royal potatoes may appear in a handful of upmarket grocers, but we are going to wait until they are slightly larger and cheaper.
Recipes to try
Fish
In some British and Irish rivers the season for taking wild salmon has started.
Mussels and oysters are still good: the old school of shellfish lovers will get their fill of these while an R remains in the month.
Lemon sole will soon follow the rest of the flatfish family out of condition, so enjoy it in peak form now.
Skate, which is not strongly seasonal, appeals as a March meal, served with some spring greens.
Recipes to try
Meat
In carnivorous terms, February and March used to be very lean months and this – probably no coincidence – was the period when Lent was observed. Traditionally, this would have been the last of the cold weather months through which pork would keep safely. There will be some extra early, early lamb, but it's not for us yet – though it won't be long.
Recipes to try
