DC Dining: Teaism

"wastED is a community of chefs, farmers, fishermen, distributors, processors, producers, designers and retailers, working together to reconceive "waste" that occurs at every link in the food chain. Our goal is to celebrate what chefs do every day on their menus (and peasant cooking has done for thousands of years): creating something delicious out of the ignored or un-coveted and inspiring new applications for the overlooked byproducts of our food system. " [emphasis added]

Taking a page out of the book of wastED, a DC restaurant called Teaism developed their "Trash or Treasure" menu. Only using the soft middle of the focaccia for the restaurant's burgers? No problem. Take the leftover bread crusts and make panzanella. Need only the soft parts of the leaves of Napa cabbage or chard? The remainder of the perfectly edible bunch can be stir-fried in a delicious sauce or deep-fried with a coating of panko.

Helps your restaurant's bottom line. Reduces the amount of methane that would be produced from the organic wastes going into a landfill. Prevents the wasting of the embodied resources within the food product (i.e. water, energy, nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon footprints).

Making the dish you design from food scraps accidentally vegan? EVEN BETTER! Don't have to worry about meat or dairy spoilage. The stale bread will be freshened by the sauce. The veggie scrap bits are likely to hold up well in the crisper section of your fridge.

Teaism's Bread Salad in orange-fennel vinaigrette with sunflower seeds and a few cucumber bits.

I decided to do a "soup & salad" lunch. Teaism has coconut-miso sipping broth, with kale shreds and chunks of acorn squash. Fear not the acorn squash's tough skin, for they softened it to an enjoyable degree and it serves as a welcomed break from sipping the broth.

"[...] we actually have the power and creativity to take what you deem un-coveted or refuse and turn that into the deliciousness." Dan Barber (chef) in a PBS News Hour video on Scholars Talk Trash