"
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
