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Embrace the joys of June
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Fruit
Vegetables
Meat and fish
Other seasons and reasons
June is the starting point for home-grown fruit and also brings us some of the best vegetables: salad leaves, new peas, asparagus... Dee McQuillan gives us a taste of what's to come this month
Fruit
- With summer comes the first field crop of British berries, the strawberries, followed hot on their heels by gooseberries.
- The best of the imports are fragrant white peaches, nectarines (mostly red, but not always), cherries and Charentais, Cantaloupe and Galia melons. You may even spot some tiny French strawberries – fraises du bois.
Recipes to try
Vegetables
- This is a fabulous time of year for veg. The salads are sprouting, the beans broadening or running, and the home-grown peas just as sweet as a pea can be (but don't stock-pile the latter, as their sugar soon turns to starch).
- Also good and home-grown are asparagus, courgettes, herbs, new potatoes and salty samphire.
- Globe artichokes, wet (meaning fresh) garlic and tiny silverskin onions are likely to be imported.
Recipes to try
Meat and fish
- June is a great month for lamb, which takes its flavour from the summer pasture.
- The best of the summer catch includes: crab; luxurious lobster, langoustines and wild salmon; mackerel and Scottish herrings; prawns; sardines; sea bass and squid.
Recipes to try
Other seasons and reasons
- The commencement of the so-called Season signals a round of champagne (warm), marquees (hot) and strawberries (ripe, let's hope, but certainly pricey) with the crème de la crème at Henley, Wimbledon and various race courses.
- Meanwhile, back in the real world, the rest of us will be slumming it in the back yard with bangers on the BBQ and the new season's wasps dancing attendance.
Recipes to try
