11 Oct 2024
Elena Hogg, founder of local culinary company FOOD by Elena, is trying to cut down on the amount of food she throws away…
Food waste: two of the buzziest words on the lips of today’s ecowarrior, and for good reason. According to an article The Guardian published in 2022, the average household spends over £700 per year on food that they don’t eat – an astounding amount.
I, for one, can think of far better things to do with that kind of money than spend it on rotting food (ironically, buying food being one of them). Perhaps the sheer abundance of options around us these days has led to a sense of entitlement, even extravagance, when it comes to buying food.
I have often let lettuce go brown in the fridge even as I’m making an order for delivery. Or the homemade soup I’ve eaten two nights in a row goes tangy because I’m making a pasta dish for a bit of variety.
I am, however, as so many of us are, trying to be more mindful about waste. I still make the pasta on those carb-needy evenings, but the soup goes in the freezer to defrost next week, rather than sitting in an anonymous Tupperware at the back of the fridge, where I can ignore it till it’s too mouldy to eat and the decision to throw it out is made for me.
There are lots of apps to help us avoid waste across so many areas, from selling pre-loved clothes to reclaiming furniture and passing on household items. Even at a local level, there’s much scope for reusing and upcycling: our street WhatsApp group pings daily with items up for grabs, from a child’s scooter or some curtains to box files or surplus glass ramekins. Gü has a lot to answer for in terms of kitchen clutter.
As far as rescuing food goes, there are apps like Too Good To Go, adopted by all kinds of food outlets inviting people to buy food at a reduced price that would otherwise go unsold. There’s also Olio, and enterprises such as Oddbox among many others, all working hard to reduce waste.
My own food business uses a relatively effective system based mainly on the fact that my business fridge is under the same roof as my regular fridge and anything that goes beyond its ‘best before’ gets neatly assimilated into the family fridge for consumption by my ever-hungry family. Simples.
And furthering the good fight (or the food fight), I’m collaborating with St Albans Community Pantry next week to help raise funds for the charity, which rescues food from local supermarkets, bakeries and other outlets to distribute to anyone who wants to visit the Pantry and collect.
They also deliver boxes of food to those most in need, and organise community breakfasts and dinners for the more vulnerable individuals in our community, all using rescued food and a bank of tireless volunteers.
I visited the Pantry’s fridges the other day to see the kind of food available and assess what might make a decent menu for their fund-raiser. In a blatant attempt to sell tickets, I will tell you it’s on Wednesday 16th October at the swanky Poggenpohl showroom on London Road at 7.30pm. Please click here to buy a ticket and, to whet your appetite, let me take you through the dishes I’ve been practising for the event.
Things will kick off with canapés: a spiced lamb kofte and a vegetarian version, accompanied by some zingy tzatziki. I’m also making a variety of dips to dunk toasted (rescued) flatbread into: a smooth and nutty hummus, a garlicky baba ganoush and some of my spiced roasted carrot dip with pumpkin seeds.
I’ve played around with Moroccan-style pizza, too – olives, herbs, saffron, tapenades and preserved lemon all have a part to play and I’m making the pizza dough using rescued flour.
For the main event, I’m offering two kinds of tagine: one made with succulent chicken and sticky apricots, and the other with black turtle beans and red peppers (both rescued). I’d normally serve with bulgur wheat, but in an effort to use up what’s surplus at the Pantry, it’ll probably be rice.
I love the challenge of designing a menu from a set list of available foods, and making both ecology AND flavour the priorities.
We see more and more established and avant garde restaurants producing food that uses less popular cuts of meat, for example, or vegetables that are almost always surplus.
In both professional kitchens and those of home cooks, aesthetic and mouth-feel are still very much in the picture. But the frame is starting to widen a little to encompass not just what we want food to do, but also what we need it to do.
