Seasonal foods for August

If it’s in season, it’s at its best, and August has to be one of the best months in the food calendar for sheer variety. Most of the time these ingredients are cheaper too due to their abundance, especially if you’re buying fruit and veg at the market or the greengrocer.

What’s in season for August?

Fruit: apricots, bilberries, blackberries, blueberries, cherries, currants (black, red, white), early apples, early damsons, figs, greengages, gooseberries, loganberries, peaches, plums, raspberries, strawberries and wild strawberries. Imported melons, nectarines.

Vegetables: aubergines, basil, broad beans, broccoli and calabrese, celery, chives, courgettes, cucumbers, fennel, globe artichokes, green beans, horseradish, kohlrabi, lamb’s lettuce, lettuce, mushrooms (ceps, chanterelles, field, oyster, porcini, puffball, shaggy ink cap), new potatoes, peas, peppers, radishes, rocket, samphire, sorrel, spinach, spring onions, summer squash, sweetcorn, tarragon, tomatoes, watercress.

Fish and shellfish: black bream, brown and rainbow trout, brown crab, crayfish, Dover sole, haddock, herring, john dory, lobster, pilchards, pollack, prawns, red and grey mullet, salmon, sea bass, squid.

Meat, poultry and game: grouse from the 12^th, hare at its best.

Cheeses: Farmhouse Cheddar, British goats’ cheese. Chaource, Charolles, Valencay.

While I’d like a fancy Dover sole dinner more than anything right now, I think it’d be more realistic to settle for some blueberries and cherries (is it my imagination or is there a glut of them this year?), or maybe some roasted squash soup or risotto.

What are you going to cook?