In professional kitchens, chefs are increasingly attempting to minimize waste by using as much of their meat and produce in as many was as they can. “The no-waste movement really began in traditional food cultures hundreds of years ago—it’s the idea of taking something that might otherwise be thrown away and transforming it into something tasty and nutritious,” says Chef Dan Barber, winner of several James Beard Awards and the founder of WastED, a community of chefs and other members of the food industry who publicize efforts to produce great meals made from “off” ingredients—things like kale ribs, misshapen vegetables, fish cartilage and offal. “That’s something every chef does—it’s a basic principle of good cooking,” Barber emphasizes. “Today, there’s an awareness around this issue that wasn’t there even a year ago. But I think we’ll only be successful when we stop thinking in terms of things like peelings and offcuts as ‘waste’ and instead make them an expected part of people’s everyday eating.” At Barber’s Blue Hill Restaurant in Manhattan and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills (Westchester County), he and his team “constantly audit our waste,” Barber says. Rather than shove whatever isn’t being used off the cutting boards and into the trash, the crew picks through the scraps and tries to work out how they might be repurposed. “It forces us to be much more mindful and creative as cooks,” Barber says. “Otherwise, we might fall into a kind of grocery-store mentality—cherry-picking only the most desirable ingredients for our menus.” In the end, Paykin concludes, the food we eat has “come [to be] viewed as, and considered, a commodity rather than this living, breathing thing that’s so necessary to our health and happiness.” Until we change our basic point of view, the solution to the food waste problem—and, by extension, the growing food security disparity—will be to create economic incentives that preclude it. Chefs and restaurateurs may see a reward for finding innovative ways of using scraps with an improved bottom line, but it all starts with the farmers, who are no better off financially whether their leftover produce is delivered to a soup kitchen or left to rot. 4
zerowastesolutions
CHEF MOGAN ANTHONY VILLAGE SOCIAL KITCHEN + BAR As the dominant byproduct of the beer industry, spent grain accounts for up to 85 percent of a brewery’s total waste. The majority of the leftovers from many breweries is shipped or picked up and goes to feed livestock and hogs. Chef Mogan Anthony, of the Village Social in Mount Kisco, has a different, tasty and sustainable use for the spent grain. “About a year ago, I started using spent grain as a crispy component—like a breadcrumbtype coating for chicken and other protein,” he explains. “It has a very earthy tone to it, depending on the type of beer, and can also sometimes have a very strong flavor of the beer that it was produced from.” Depending on how often he picks up the grain from local craft breweries, Anthony also uses the versatile, fiber-rich ingredient for a nutty grain purée for pralines and in fresh-made pasta (though “it’s very difficult,” he admits). He currently sources pasta from Sfoglini Pasta Shop in New York City, which uses spent grain from Bronx Brewery. Anthony’s “zero waste” pasta will premier on the Village Social’s spring Hudson Valley Restaurant Week menu. —KW photo : jermaine haughton
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