British seasonal food May 2012

I had a delicious rhubarb and apple crumble at the weekend, which reminded me that it was time for a quick seasonal foods round-up for May. Last month was rather sparse for home grown produce, but in May everything starts bursting into life. Tuck in while there’s a glut at your local market.

Fruit: Rhubarb (first non-forced), early strawberries. Imported Alphonso mangoes.

Vegetables: Asian greens, British asparagus, baby broad beans, cabbage (green), chervil, chives, cucumbers, Jersey Royal potatoes, lovage, lettuce, mint, morel mushrooms, parsley, last of the purple sprouting broccoli, radishes, rocket, samphire, sea kale, sorrel, spinach, spring greens, spring onions, summer savoury, watercress, wild garlic. Imported Hass avocado.

Fish and shellfish: brown shrimp, crab, cuttlefish, haddock, mackerel, pollack, prawns, sardines, sea bass, sea trout, signal crayfish, Spring lobster, wild salmon.

Meat, poultry and game: duck eggs, new season lamb, poussin (Spring chicken).

Cheeses: ewe’s milk cheeses, Stinking Bishop, Bonchester, English soft cheeses, Sharpham, Wheatland. Bleu d’Auvergene, Chabichou, Reblochon. Pecorino (early).

What are you going to cook? I’m treating myself to some mangoes before the end of their short season.