We’ve gotten a lot of calls at the office these past few days of people asking:
Do you know where I can get local organic food for Tu B’Shevat?

This is, of course, exciting that people think to call Hazon to ask these things, and that people are thinking about these things in the first place.

It’s problematic, though. Tu B’Shevat is February 3rd. That is, a globally-warmed season aside, quite squarely in the middle of the winter for most American Jews.

What, then, are our options?

In New York, and I assume elsewhere, there are farmers markets that are open year round. You can buy root vegetables (harvested in the fall and stored in root cellars) such as carrots, potatoes, onions, and squashes with relative ease. Apples and some pears (also in storage) are abundant. And many farmers have greenhouses or hoop houses where they can grow green things during the winter: kale, spinach, salad greens—there’s one stand at Union Square Farmers Market that sells cherry tomatoes from their greenhouse, year round.

Ok great. But on Tu B’Shevat, we eat fruits and nuts that grow in the land of Israel. Read: Mediterranean climate. Texas and California shouldn’t have too much trouble finding local nuts this time of year…. But not so much in the Northeast. So we have two, somewhat contradictory options:

Option One: Dried fruit. There are plenty of local peaches, apricots, plums (for the second world, where we eat fruits with a soft exterior and hard interior), and grapes, raisins and berries (think craisins) that can be used for the third world (all soft) that are ripe in the summer around here, and which can be dried for eating year round. Maybe it’s something you might even want to try next summer; cut your fruit into thin slices and use a convection oven, food dehydrator, or simply leave them out in the sun to dry, and save for next year’s Tu B’Shevat. Local fruit in the middle of winter - that’s one option.

Option Two: Tu B’Shevat is not the time for local. You can celebrate any number of different things on Tu B’Shevat, from mysticism to feminism, but the main thrust of the holiday is trees, agriculture, and the land of Israel. It is quite remarkable how eating food from another place can transport us to that place: sugar dates, pomegranates, almonds… with every bite we are closer and closer to lounging at the Dead Sea. This is a good thing. It’s a question of kodesh and chol, of what we do on ordinary days and what we do on special days. If you’re looking to make your Tu B’Shevat seder unique – buy fruit from Israel. Seek it out! If your grocery store doesn’t tell you where the fruit comes from, ask the people who work there. Chances are you’ll find peppers or fresh citrus from Israel; you’ll certainly be able to find canned olives.

And then, eat local the rest of the month. Celebrations mean doing something different than what you normally do. It’s OK, once in a while, to enjoy food that comes from far away; indeed, the spice trade and the search for delicacies from around the world is what prompted global expansion. Not necessarily a bad thing. If you eat mostly local foods from now until Tu B’Shevat, and into the lean months of early spring…go right ahead and indulge in foreign treats – it’ll make the holiday special.

(at our Tu B’Shevat Seder at the JCC on February 3rd, we’ll be serving root vegetable Terra Chips, and fruits from Israel :-)  Register today!)