This is the time of year known as the hungry gap. Generally for pre-industrial farming communities in the West this was the late winter/early spring period when the stored food from late year's harvest season was dwindling, but the garden was not yet producing much (if anything). Animal-based foods might also be in short supply if meat stores from the winter are exhausted and farm animals giving milk and eggs have less to eat and thus produce less. Some even posit that this is the origin of the Lent tradition of sacrifice.
In our house this time of year means I stop skipping past the produce aisle in the grocery store as our stored veggies from fall tend to have either gone bad or been eaten. If I lived at any other point in history the hungry gap would have been a time of real struggle, but for me in the modern world it means a dearth of local foods but no actual hunger as plentiful "back-up" veggies are available from all over the world. (I should admit, though, that I buy fruit year round for my fruit-crazy kids.) As I shop I try to reflect on the privilege I have to not go hungry while at the same time think meaningfully about the social and environmental impacts of buying food from halfway around the world.
Every year during harvest season abundance we try to plan our food storage for the coming months. Mostly this means canning, freezing and an improvised cold cellar in our basement stairwell. Some things work better than others and we tinker with the system each year. Last fall we added an improvised clamp to our storage repertoire, and as we came to the end of the carrots in the cold cellar last week we decided it was time to dig up the clamp and see how it did.
