Taking hunger off the menu
How world-renowned chef Massimo Bottura uses kitchen creativity to fight food waste Laura Brehaut
Food waste is a monumental global issue. Each year, approximately one third of food produced for human consumption is either wasted or lost. That’s roughly 1.3 billion tonnes.
According to the United Nations, if just a quarter of this food was saved, it could feed 870 million people.
From Anthony Bourdain’s documentary, Wasted! to a recent proliferation of “ugly” produce purveyors and start-ups that use food waste to create new products, the widespread issue is in the spotlight like never before.
Massimo Bottura, worldrenowned chef-owner of the three Michelin- starred restaurant Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy, says he felt a sense of responsibility to help heighten awareness of food waste and hunger.
Expo 2015 in Milan provided the impetus with its theme: “Feeding the planet, energy for life.” In late 2013, Bottura started receiving requests to cook at the exhibition. He found the invitations simultaneously “flattering and unsettling.”
Chefs specialize in feeding people, he says. Why weren’t they being tapped for their ideas on how to feed the planet? A new breed of soup kitchen – where salvaged food finds new life – was his response.
He called on his friends – some of the world’s most venerated chefs, artists and designers – to create Refettorio Ambrosiano, a space of both beauty and nourishment. Years after the world fair, the concept and the Milan kitchen live on.
The success of the project compelled Bottura to found the non- profit organization Food for Soul, which sustains Refettorio Ambrosiano as well as four other similar kitchens in Italy and abroad.
“In the Refettorio in Milan, there is a family now,” Bottura says. “I devote (my time) to opening soup kitchens … I love it. And I do what I love.”
In Bread is Gold (Phaidon, 2017), he documents the first six months of the inaugural Milan Refettorio and includes 150 recipes contributed by 45 of the guest chefs. All royalties from the book go to Food for Soul.
Each chapter focuses on a different chef, detailing their experiences and dishes. “Every recipe is an evolution,” Bottura says. As such, the recipe pages have ample space for taking notes – an open invitation to tweak and adapt depending on what’s lurking in your refrigerator.
From the legendary Ferran Adrià to homegrown talent Jeremy Charles of Raymonds Restaurant in St. John’s, Nfld., a rotating roster of more than 60 chefs used supermarket waste to craft lunches for neighbourhood school children and dinners for guests from homeless shelters.
“You need to feed these people in a much deeper way. Make them feel at home in a beautiful space full of art, design. You rebuild their dignity. This is the key point,” Bottura says.
The daily food deliveries remained a mystery until the moment they arrived at the Refettorio. Dishes such as Antonia Klugman and Fabrizio Mantovani’s fish soup with bread gnocchi, and Gastromotiva’s banana peel chutney are just two of many that illustrate the chefs’ resourcefulness.
The recipes f e at u r e d in Bread is Gold are proof that exceptional meals can be made from the likes of banana peels and day- old bread. With a creative and informed approach, ingredients destined for the garbage bin can be transformed.
“To me, this book is the most important book of the last 30 years,” Bottura says. “Because it’s 45 of the most influential chefs in the world dedicating their time and their creativity – not using special tools or expensive machines – to create very easy recipes with what they found (in the fridge each day).”
The book’s title comes from a dessert on the menu at Osteria Francescana. Goldtinted with layers of caramelized bread crunch and salted bread ice cream, ‘ Bread Is Gold’ came to epitomize the spirit of the Milan Refettorio.
Bread – a perfectly ordinary, often overlooked and underappreciated ingredient – becomes something extraordinary. Bottura served a modified version of the dessert at one of the very first meals in Milan, preceded by a soup of summer vegetables and beans, and pasta with mint and breadcrumb pesto.
The dish had its genesis in one of his childhood favourites – zuppa di latte ( milk soup). A bowl of warm milk with grated day- old bread, it’s one of many Italian recipes that makes use of the leftover staple.
Confronted with day- old bread, Bottura explains that he would slice and toast it for bruschetta or crush it to make panzanella ( Tuscan bread salad). While with a three- day- old loaf, he would make his daughter’s favourite, passatelli ( pasta made with breadcrumbs).
Cucina povera – peasant cooking – is integral to the spirit of Italian cuisine. As an Italian chef, Bottura says the most important lesson is to use every ingredient to its full advantage. From breadcrumbs to cheese rinds and meat “offcuts,” if something is edible, it should never be thrown away.
For many home cooks, there’s much to learn from this approach – both in reducing household food waste and pushing boundaries. As demonstrated by the chefs in Bread is Gold, limitations can result in inventive food.
“Every single recipe in the book can be made by every single passionate person who spends time in the kitchen. It’s going to teach you how to have a dialogue with your refrigerator in which you can really save money, eat well and help the planet,” Bottura says.
“Everyone in the world can do a little step (to fight food waste). But if we all do steps, we’re going to be revolutionary because all together, we’re going to be very loud.”