Chef Anthony Bourdain’s new doc Wasted! will make us all think differently about food
“What does a chef do? They take something that’s ugly and tough and transform it into something wonderful,” Anthony Bourdain says in the newly released trailer for his latest project, Wasted! The Story of Food Waste.
High- profile chefs such as Massimo Bottura, Dan Barber and Danny Bowien are profiled in the documentary, as they share how they approach the issue of food waste in their kitchens.
With research going into smart labels that can “sense” when your food has gone off, and clay packaging that helps keep perishables fresh longer, food waste is now widely recognized as a serious environmental issue that needs to be addressed.
In the U. S. alone, 40 per cent of the food produced is thrown away. And as the trailer highlights, food waste is the main cause of biodiversity loss, deforestation and water extraction around the world.
In Wasted!, the chefs demonstrate how dealing with food waste can be delicious rather than a hardship. “You have to look at your kitchen in a different light,” Barber says in the trailer. “Fishermen’s wives took this reject fish and they created bouillabaisse.
“Prosciutto di Parma: that is a waste- fed pig. They’re not sold as waste; they’re sold as delicious dishes.”
The documentary was directed by long- time Bourdain collaborators: Emmy Award- winners Anna Chai ( The Mind of a Chef; The Layover) and Nari Key ( The Mind of a Chef; Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown). The film will be released on iTunes and screened at select theatres Oct. 13. “I’m not an activist, but the intent of this film aligns with something that’s very much personal.
“I came up in kitchen regimes where you live by an absolute rule of using everything and wasting nothing,” Bourdain told Eater in a prepared statement. “One film isn’t going to cure all of society’s ills.
“But if a few people start thinking about what they’re eating for dinner in a different way or think twice about throwing out what is often the best stuff, it’s a good day.”