in a previous life

This morning I received a gchat from a friend in Arusha asking me to please "explain how seasonal eating works" here in Tanzania where, for many things, there are no seasons. That is to say that we can seemingly get our hands on a plethera of foods (i.e. lettuce, tomatoes [no, not heirloom], squashes, beans...) that are grown all year round. Now, there are some foods that I have noticed have a "season": when we first arrived the mangoes were FABULOUS and we consumed something like 4 every day-- each of us. But generally, are we still eating seasonally if there are no real seasons? If we eat cauliflower coming from Kenya, is that still considered eating seasonally? Is Kenya local? Is it like buying an apple from Virgina when we live in North Carolina (because it's a bordering state) or more akin to buying an apple from New Zealand (because it's a different country)?

This got me thinking about the fact that in a previous life, Tim and I were "locavores." Does anyone out there remember that? Tim kept a pretty fantastic blog about that experience. "It's funny," he often comments, "We spend a year eating locally and I [Tim] write about it, and then we spend a year living in Africa and you [Kiyah] write about it." Hm. Funny.

We fared pretty well our first local meal (in Maine). After that it was a lot of pork and ice cream. I mean A LOT of pork and ice cream.
-kjd