Zero-waste cooking, in today’s world, is a challenging task for restaurants as well as individuals, looking to reduce their waste. The most important element in zero-waste cooking is a desire to minimise and conserve by any means possible, knowing that even if the goal of zero is not attained, any reduction of waste contributes towards benefitting our environment and reducing the size of our landfills.
While conversing with Anukriti Anand, co-owner of Altogether experimental, she acknowledged that it can be quite difficult to reduce waste when suppliers insist on sending their products in plastic containers. For home chefs, this can be a point of contention as well, as most common ingredients are wrapped in plastic or sold in cardboard boxes. Zero-waste questions not only plastic but, any packaging or food item that eventually finds its way into a landfill and increases our carbon footprint.
To combat the excess waste generated while cooking, Altogether Experimental was started with the goal of running a minimal waste kitchen. The café has a hot kitchen, a bar and a pastry kitchen, all of which run as one unit to minimize each other’s waste and find the best possible solution to any leftover items. Any food that cannot be eaten in the restaurant is pickled, fermented or infused in salt or sugar, which helps ensure that there is no wastage of food, be it onion peels or the spinach stem. At Altogether Experimental, the goal of reducing waste adds to the complexity of their dishes and helps in creating innovative sides and garnishes.
Similarly, Archit Agarwal, a food blogger, stated that he often refers to different magazines that discuss more innovative ways to recycle parts of fruits or vegetables, that are normally thrown away. However, as a person interested in experimenting with his food, Archit is often let down by the recipes that he finds. He emphasised that there is a scarcity of techniques, in which reducing waste is a key element.
Hence, for individuals working towards this goal, zero-waste restaurants and their chefs become a primary source of knowledge and inspiration. Visiting places like Altogether Experimental and NicoCaara, and understanding their treatment of all parts of their produce can help individuals looking to reduce their waste.
So, what methods do restaurants recommend?
Lokesh Swami, the head chef of NicoCaaara, discussed with us the various ways in which his restaurant reduces its generation of waste:
Almost all our production is in-house and we don’t buy any semi-processed food or butchery. This gives us control over our usage of the entire product. For example- the trimmings of vegetables along with the trimmings and bones of meat go into making soups, stocks and stuffing for our café menu items.
He also added that NicoCaara mainly uses ingredients that are in-season and thus, have a longer lifespan than off-season produce. This is why restaurants often create seasonal menus and at NicoCaara, they frequently refresh their menu, also making it far more enjoyable for the public.
Anand, the head chef of her all-girl kitchen, also shared a few ways in which she re-uses any waste. She stated that she makes a “pickle out of orange peels which can be used in drinks and roasts the peels of beetroots and carrots and adds them to the hummus”. In addition, she also uses garlic and onion peels to make seasoning salts and uses the inner pits of pineapples to make fermented pineapple drinks or pineapple vinegar. At Altogether Experimental, the key to reducing waste is the synchronised movement of all the three kitchens towards their common goal. Not only this, but Anand also conveyed that they have used scraps of cloth left-over from making uniforms as napkins at pop-up events.
Inspired by a few basic rules of Ayurveda, Swami has brought his own beliefs into the NicoCaara kitchen, looking to practice his values commercially. For this reason, hyper-local produce and eating food in-season, are both important to him and help in creating a more environment-friendly kitchen. In fact, Swami also says that his kitchen does not believe in stocking up food in large portions. He states that to him, serving fresh food is of the utmost importance and running out is better than serving out of a large, refrigerated stock. Further, the restaurant uses its excess produce to create their daily specials and includes it in their pop-up menus as well. In accordance with his Ayurvedic principles, Swami also believes that serving more vegetarian food helps the kitchen move towards a lesser waste generation also because, “Indian Ayurveda has certified uses of all parts of fruits and vegetables”, which makes the food far healthier and environment-friendly. For any food leftover, NicoCaara also has a farm in Vasant Vihar where most of their vegetarian food waste is decomposed.
Finally, Swami also states that one of the most important aspects is understanding the cuisine and the food you are making. The better the knowledge and comfort with the cuisine, the easier it is for the chef to re-use each part of their produce and minimize waste.
Making in-house sauces, fermenting, pickling, curing and using leftover as stuffing for another item, are some of the many ways to re-use or fully use our produce. Following the nose-to-tail method with our protein and using each part of our produce allows large scale kitchens to vastly reduce the amount of waste they produce and adds to the complexity of their dishes.
With greater awareness of such methods and recipes, the general public can also contribute towards the zero-waste initiative, eventually forcing super-markets to develop re-think their various layers of packaging and bring a true change in the way we cook our food.
