January 2023
Food waste is a big issue, with around 770,300 tonnes of food being wasted in Ireland in 2020 (Environmental Protection Agency, 2023). Through organisation and clever menu design, chefs can play a significant role in reducing the amount of food being wasted in this country.
“Waste is a Failure of the Imagination” – Doug McMaster
For today’s class, we foray into the wonderful world of Zero Waste Cookery. The class begins with a demonstration from our lecturer Niall Hill, who has experimented with the use of a celeriac from Root to Shoot. Niall shows us how he created a dish using all parts of the celeriac, creating: Celeriac Fibre Chutney, Celeriac Skin & Miso Puree, Celeriac Skin & Onion Skin Jus, Celeriac Leaf & Roast Hazelnut Gremolata, Celeriac Furikake and Celeriac Leaf Salt. All of these components - which utilise not only the flesh of the vegetable, but all of its parts – combine to create an elegant and refined dish, which respects the vegetable in its entirety. It is a nod to the knowledge behind growing, and the duty of the chef to respect this by producing minimal waste. 44% of the celeriac is its flesh, meaning that in most cases an astonishing 66% of this vegetable - which takes anywhere between 90 to 120 days to grow - is normally thrown in the bin.
For the rest of the afternoon, we are tasked with selecting a vegetable from the trolley, assessing how much of it would normally be wasted by processing it in a typical way and measuring the results. After this, we must experiment with how we might attempt to utilise the parts that normally go to waste. I select the humble leek from the trolley, a vegetable which I spent a few hours harvesting on Dermot Carey’s farm last semester and one which we normally waste quite a bit of in the restaurant as we process it to remove the more bitter green leafy parts. I place the leek on my bench and immediately regret my choice.
What on Earth am I going to do with a leek? The green leaves are bitter and fibrous, and there is little difference in flavour between the white part and the lighter green part. I decide to accept my fate and dive into an assessment of the humble leek, with gritted teeth. I begin by dividing the leek into sections by colour and weighing the sections , identifying flavour profiles and possible applications.
I am already sick of the taste of leek. Especially after tasting the dark green parts, whose flavour will haunt me for the evening. I think these parts will be best treated by adding some sugar and through cooking them gently to get rid of some of the bitterness. I proceed by adding all the outer parts of the leek to a tray and placing them in the oven to char, hoping this will make a leek ash, it doesn’t quite. I decide to chop the light-dark green parts finely and sweat them, keeping some parts back to sauté gently and char. The whiter parts I toss in a bit of spelt flour and deep fry, to add some texture to my dish. I abandon the idea of making the dish entirely out of leeks as I lack both the time and knowledge to make this feasible and decide to present my leeks in various forms on a roast hazelnut puree to compliment the nuttiness I discovered during tasting.
Certainly, time would be a factor in processing vegetables with minimising waste in mind, and I think it would be entirely unfeasible to ask the chefs where I work to adjust their methods in order to save the 70%% of the leek which goes in the bin each time we use one. It highlights two significant problems which we will face in the industry if we wish to reduce food waste. Imported vegetables are cheap, and the cost of labour far outweighs the benefit of minimising waste generated through using them. Secondly, menus would have to be entirely redesigned, focused on using a select number of vegetables in their entirety in order to minimise the waste generated. This poses an interesting question; is the Irish public ready for a restaurant like this? As much as we all want to contribute to a sustainable food system, are we willing to sacrifice elaborate menus and the unfortunate reality that they produce a huge amount of food waste in pursuit of perfection? Regardless, the day is coming when we must change our ways, and restaurants like Silo in London are paving the way in demonstrating how beautiful, thought-provoking dishes can be produced while all but eliminating food waste.
References
Environmental Protection Agency. (2023). National Food Waste Statistics. Retrieved from Environmental Protection Agency: https://www.epa.ie/our-services/monitoring--assessment/waste/national-waste-statistics/food/
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