The Seasonal Revolution

How Farm-to-Table is Reshaping Global Cuisine

Close your eyes and picture a tomato—not the pale, mealy impostor you grab from a supermarket bin in February, trucked 1,500 miles across the United States, harvested unripe to survive a grueling journey. No, envision a sun-warmed, crimson heirloom, plucked from a vine just miles away in July, its juice bursting with a flavor that stops you mid-bite. This is the heart of the farm-to-table movement, a global rebellion against a food system that sacrifices taste, nutrition, and the planet for the sake of durability and convenience.

From California’s sun-drenched farms to Italy’s Food Valley, where my son Nicolai trained at ALMA, a chef school in Colorno near Parma, this philosophy is redefining how we eat. Nicolai learned to craft dishes that sing with the season’s bounty, sourcing asparagus or Parmigiano-Reggiano from local farms. But in a world hooked on year-round strawberries, can seasonal eating scale? Let’s dig deeper, weaving stories, data, and the restaurants leading this charge, with a lens on what’s at stake for our plates and our world.