Great British waste menu

[franbee]

Just watching this programme. These top chefs are going round sourcing food that is unsaleable to the public and would be thrown out, and are cooking a banquet for 60. Tell you about it later, crocus.

[Crocus]

Thanks Fran! Sounds like a rather interesting concept? x

[franbee]

Yes, they went to farmers who had to throw away misshapen fruit and veg which didn't conform. They went to supermarkets who threw away food past it's best by date. They went to people with fridges full of food they couldn't eat because it was out of date. It was disgraceful, I was horrified.
The meals they cooked were very imaginative. Fishcakes, purees, ravioli, consomme. At the banquet, they asked supermarket reps to agree to have a shelf 'eat today', and celebrities to agree not to waste food at home.

[eleanor2]

sounds a good idea....

[Crocus]

I think it's a wonderful idea actually. Not only does food not get wasted, thrown away, but are used in imaginative and economic ways. Why must misshapen fruit be thrown away? Misshapen to who's and what standards? We also have that here, fruit and veg which are not 'perfectly formed' are graded as sub-standard and are used for canned fruit or veggies, or end up in veggie shops, something I don't mind about. Once it's peeled, cut, chopped, or whatever, it's fine. There's not a lot wrong with the taste either.

So I really think this is a brilliant idea. Good on them to have taken this on. It will perhaps teach top chefs that the best is not always necessary, that you can do something with a misshapen pear or carrot or whatever. It might be a learning curve both ways. x

[Pippa]

I could barely believe the waste from growers and food outlets. The normal householder gets castigated all the time for waste and it is the big boys who are the worst offenders. It should be made available to the general public or processed, the mishaped tomatoes could all have been turned into passatta or sauce.

[dragonfly]

I think all that waste is disgusting when half the world is starving. I don't care what food looks like, I go by taste. I wish I had seen the program. x

[souter girl]

I do blame the supermarkets, their insistence on perfect shape and regular size inevitably puts the price up and the growers are forced to "over produce" so that they have enough for the supermarkets or they risk losing the contract. I know some supermarkets send food close to its sell-by to homeless refuges, but they cannot send food that is past it IN CASE THEY ARE SUED!!Isn't that ridiculous? I have also heard of people who live by scavenging in supermarkets' bins and live perfectly healthily as of course the food is mostly perfectly edible (see the inside of my fridge for that!)

[Ivy]

Can you remember the discussion about curved cucumbers? I mean who apart from the logistic centres does profit from this kind of nonsense? Sell by dates are rough guidlines and in German it says "mindestens haltbar bis..." which means at least consumable until... but yo wouldn't get any past food even for animal food. I just had a yoghurt yesterday that was 4 days over and it was fine.Last week I had cream that was supposed to last at least two more days and it had gone off, what does it tell us? Try out and never trust the stamp on the lid! As I buy mostly from farm shops and farmers markets I get funnily shaped cucumbers twinned carrots and heart shaped potatoes and I always admire nature's ingenuity.

[eleanor2]

here here.

[jazzactivist]

I only buy food from small shops and farm shops / farmers markets and quite often it isn't perfect in shape. The sell by dates are often longer than in supermarkets too. I think food should look like food, and not like an airbrushed celebrity version of it. One of the farmers that we know told us that he used to supply Sainburys with lamb chops and evey chop had to be exactly the same weight and shape. He said that he gave it up after informing their rep that it would be fine if all lambs grew in a uniform way but as they are living beings, like children, they don't.

I meant to watch that programme, fran, but didn't for some reason. The amount of food waste was shocking. When I worked at a homeless hostel M&S used to let us have that days 'date limited' food, but we had to go round to the back door of the shop in the evening to collect it. We used to take a big van as there was so much of it, and we passed a lot on to other hostels and projects. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, except for the way that some people cooked it! There is a movement now of people who forage in supermarket dumpsters. I think they are called "freegrazers".

[RebPax]

It's great that people who are in a position to highlight the problem of supermarket waste do, as it's such a hidden waste for some people. I was really surprised when I moved to Austria to see that supermarkets here not only sell off products that are damaged or close to their sell-by date at 25 or 50% off, but also reduce the price of fruit and vegetables towards the end of each day. I never saw anything like that in New Zealand, and while it doesn't solve the problem it's certainly a start.

I remember once when I was working in a bakery where some of the bread was made by hand and so the loaves were not uniform in shape, a customer came in in a rage claiming her whole dinner party had been ruined because of the "misshapen" loaf she had been sold. The loaf was - in my opinion - fine, but what she wanted was a perfectly square loaf like you get at the supermarket. I tried to explain to her that baking bread is not like assembling a car, it is a living organic process. In the end I refunded her for the loaf and took the it home myself. It was lovely.

[jazzactivist]

What a small and miserable life that woman must lead, Reb-Pax. I wonder how boring the rest of her food looked at the dinner party. There is just no pleasing some horses... The bread that you used to make sounds lovely, and that type of handmade bread lasts much longer too. The mass-produced ones have something added to them so that they go stale after one day to make people buy more, whereas I have bought sourdough or rye bread that stays fresh for the whole week. There's nothing nicer than hand-made bread, and with a nice bowl of home-made soup its sheer pleasure.

[Crocus]

Hi Rebpax, lovely to see you again - hope you are doing okay? I agree what you said about the loaf - I actually prefer something which is not perfect, it's made by hand with loving care and the different shapes make it more real than perfectly formed, uniform loaves of bread! It actually shows you how far people are prepared to go for that perfect touch, and most probably it was more about her and not the loaf of bread.