A sustainable, historical three-course feast
ELEANOR BARNETT shows how leftovers can be used to make a starter, main course and dessert inspired by different periods in British history
Today, a third of the food produced worldwide goes to waste. Climate activists regularly urge us to think before we throw perfectly good food in the bin, while the UN’s target of 2030 to halve global food waste is fast approaching. But how did our food system become so wasteful? How was food waste understood by our ancestors, and what can this history tell us about past experiences and values more widely?
From the Tudor kitchen right up to the present day, my new book, Leftovers: A History of Food Waste and Preservation, explores the ingenious ways in which our forebears sought to prevent food from going to waste – by preserving it, reusing leftovers in creative dishes, and recycling any uneaten food scraps. To celebrate the book’s publication on 14 March, I’ve created a sustainable, historical feast using three of the dishes that feature inside.
Going back to basics
For most people living before the 19th century, food was seasonal and locally sourced. Any leftover meat at slaughter was preserved in salty brines or pickles; vegetables were kept in vinegar; milk became long-lasting cheese; and Tudor gentry women, for example, preserved fruits in sugar to last through the barren winter months.
The world of food was shrinking in the Victorian period, however, as the tin can – invented in the 1810s – moved food across continents without the need for salt, sugar or fermentation, while experiments in refrigeration meant that by 1900, half of all the lamb and mutton eaten in Britain was imported in huge, refrigerated ships all the way from Australia and New Zealand.
Our feast’s main course, Victorian beef fritters, was partly a reaction to those 19th-century changes. Adapted from a recipe found in Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861), the dish was aimed at urban middle-class housewives who had become distanced from traditional cooking and preservation techniques, and who – in the eyes of the book’s author, Isabella Beeton – needed to know about the benefits of saving food and simpler, rural lifestyles. Even today, more than 160 years on, the fritters are a delicious way to use up the remains of roast beef, and the batter works well for any leftover vegetables, too.
The growth of the modern capitalist food system continued to steam ahead in the early 20th century, but following the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, food waste suddenly became an issue of national survival. With supplies at risk, the British state intervened by introducing rationing and making the wilful wasting of food fit for human consumption illegal. Housewives were urged to grow their own food, and home cooks came up with creative ways of substituting missing items with whatever was available, like mock turkey (or ‘murkey’), made from mutton and sausage meat. Any leftovers were not to be wasted, but refashioned into thrifty meals instead.
Our dessert is a dish from the period called crumb fudge, which was put forward by the British Ministry of Food as a means of reusing stale breadcrumbs. Crunchy, chocolatey and surprisingly indulgent, the recipe was a special treat that people would have saved up their sugar and butter rations to make. It’s an incredibly easy dish to put together, and great fun for kids to get involved with, too.
Crisis for a new century
After years of shortages and hardship, Britons were fast to fall for the culinary excess and wasteful consumption habits of the modern era. In fact, pre-war levels of food waste had doubled by the 1970s. But crisis hit again in 2007 when the global cost of food increased by an astonishing 75 per cent from a 2005 baseline. In this context, wasting perfectly edible food seemed criminal, and prompted the UK’s Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to launch the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, aimed at educating people in how to be more sustainable at home.
Our starter – budget broccoli soup – is inspired by one of the campaign’s early recipes, and utilises broccoli stalks left over from other dishes. The fluffy florets are a regular feature in our kitchens, but the thick stems often needlessly end up in the bin. It’s a shame, as they impart a lovely woody flavour that’s worth adding to your culinary repertoire.
Today, our supermarket shelves heave with packaged abundance, while our favourite meals can be delivered ready-to-eat to our doors in just a few clicks. Reimagining leftovers as new recipes and returning to the thrifty habits of our ancestors not only reminds us of the true value of good food, but serves as a fun and creative way of connecting to our past while protecting our future.