Autumn may be the most interesting part of the year when it comes to food, and October proves it at every market stall. The markets are filling up with pumpkins and quinces, chestnut season is finally under way, and the last peaches are lost among the pomegranates. Instead of buying the same things you bought in March, this is the month when the season writes the menu for you.

What's on the stall in October

Fruit: pomegranates, persimmons, apples, pears, grapes, quinces, and more and more mandarins. Chestnuts are the star everyone waits for all year. Vegetables: pumpkins and sweet potatoes, perfect for cream soups, purées and roasting, plus chard, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and all kinds of cabbage, leeks, carrots, beetroot and turnips.

October is also the start of hunting season - wild boar, roe deer, partridge, pheasant, wild hare - meat that goes best with chestnuts, nuts and seasonal vegetables in slow-cooked stews. After the first autumn rains and the colder nights, the wild mushrooms appear too: saffron milk caps, porcini, chanterelles.

Ten recipes that make the most of the season

1. Cream of chestnut and celeriac soup - 30 minutes. Chestnuts with onion, potato and cream make a soup that warms you up and has a rich texture.

2. Persimmon salad with mozzarella and pomegranate - 15 minutes. Sweet, creamy and tart on one plate, no cooking required.

3. Pumpkin curry with rice - a vegan dish with pumpkin, spices and basmati rice that works as a starter or a side.

4. Broccoli and feta frittata - 20 minutes. An Italian omelette with eggs, broccoli and feta, with one rule: don't overcook it, so it stays juicy.

5. Warm kale salad with pears - 30 minutes. Cold-season kale, sweet pears, goat's cheese and a little turmeric for contrast.

6. Sweet potatoes stuffed with beans and guacamole - one hour. Roasted sweet potato filled with spiced beans in tomato sauce and guacamole.

7. Baked sea bream with two peppercorns - 40 minutes. Fish in the oven with pink and black peppercorns, rosemary and lemon.

8. Partridge soup - an hour and a half. A simple game soup for colder evenings, bread compulsory.

9. Grilled saffron milk caps - 15 minutes. Clean the mushrooms well, then put them on the hotplate with nothing but oil, garlic and parsley. The less you add, the more you taste them.

10. Puff pastry tartlets with custard and persimmon - 50 minutes. Two varieties of persimmon, Fuyu and Hachiya, on pastry cream in puff pastry cases.

There is nothing revolutionary about any of this, and that is the point. Most of these ingredients are usually at their most affordable precisely when there is the most of them, and they taste the way they never do when they arrive from the other side of the world in January. The only question is whether we'll use them - or whether the pumpkin will once again end up as a decoration on the balcony.