I needn’t have worried. In the lead-up, I was inundated with edible donations of remarkable quality: organic vegetables (end-of-life produce donated by a national box scheme), kilos of gherkins (made from a glut of cucumbers saved at an allotment), and fish by-catch (fish caught outside of a fisherman’s quota, which they are usually forced, by law, to throw back into the sea to die). I was astonished to learn that such high-grade food was being wasted.
In time, this revelation led to the launch of my seasonal tapas restaurant, Poco, in Bristol. I am obsessive about never wasting food, and at Poco we employ steadfast green policies, recycling and composting more than 95% of our waste.
Supermarkets are terrible culprits. As a skint art student, I remember looking through supermarket bins in the hope of a free meal, where the likes of tuna sandwiches with expired best-before dates and perfectly good apples (save for the unidentifiable bin juice coating them) languished sadly, spoilt by supermarkets keen to restock their shelves with newer, glossier-looking goods.
I find it deeply upsetting that supermarkets believe they have a right to lock away and destroy food that is perfectly fit for human consumption, especially when food poverty is such an extensive local and global issue. Through food waste campaigns such as Feeding the 5000, an international event that feeds 5,000 people using food that would otherwise be wasted, and Food Cycle’s community cafes, large-scale food retailers have been forced to address their food waste issues more publicly. Working directly with both large and small food producers to save their surplus was enlightening and helped me to realise how we can all have a dramatic effect on the food system through where we shop and how we value our food.
Before cooking banquets with “rubbish”, I worked with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall at River Cottage in Dorset, where I was taught to care about the quality and provenance of ingredients above all else. Hugh would scold us every time a non-seasonal vegetable entered the kitchen and, with meat, we had to be able to recite, like Rain Man, the exact breed, farm and age of the animal. I gained a strong understanding of butchery and the patience to cook seasonally.
Some mornings I’d arrive at work to be confronted by the medieval scene of a whole deer hanging by tendon hooks in a freezing barn. I’d spend the morning butchering and organising it into cuts for the week’s menus, and none of it was wasted. I use relatively little meat in my cooking now, but that training in nose-to-tail cooking at River Cottage has changed the way I cook irreversibly.
The nose-to-tail philosophy refers to eating the whole animal – complete consumption: nose, tail and absolutely everything in between. In my own cooking, I’ve extended this to encompass all food, celebrating the whole ingredient – a practice I have come to describe as “root-to-fruit”. This saves both food and money, and in turn, enables you to buy better quality, higher welfare ingredients. My leftover lemon rind tart is a classic example of where I put this ethos to use at Poco; another being my beetroot “hummus”, served with beet-top crisps. The often-discarded leaves and stalks of a beetroot are full of nutrients and flavour, and make a brilliant accompaniment to the dip. This vibrant purple dip sits beautifully alongside my cavolo nero pesto, which utilises the tough stalks of the vegetable (also often thrown away) and, for extra texture, can be fortified with bread that’s going stale. Together, they are magically moreish.
Beetroot ‘hummus’ with beet-top crisps
If you can’t find beets with the tops on, make the crisps using kale or chard.
For the hummus
350-400g of whole beetroots, washed
¼ lemon, juiced
4 tbsp thick live yoghurt
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and crushed
Salt and black pepper, to taste
For the crisps
1 bunch (about 500g) beetroot leaves, ruby chard, or kale
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt, to taste
1 Put the beetroots into a small saucepan and cover with plenty of water. Bring to the boil and reduce the heat. Simmer for 50 minutes, then drain and leave until cool. Rub off the skin and remove the rough tops. Put the tops aside for the crisps.
2 Quarter the cooked beetroots and put them in a blender. Add the lemon juice, yoghurt, olive oil, garlic and cumin seeds. Blend to a smooth puree and season to taste. Allow to cool.
3 Meanwhile, make the beetroot crisps with the tops you cut off. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Drizzle the beetroot leaves with honey and oil, then sprinkle with salt. Massage the dressing into each leaf.
4 Spread the leaves out on baking trays and put into the oven for 15 minutes. 5 Separate the leaves and remove any that are already crispy. Return the rest to the oven for another 5 minutes. Check, and repeat if necessary.
6 Serve the cooled hummus dressed with olive oil, the beetroot crisps for dipping and seasonal crudites. Store the hummus in the fridge.
Tom Hunt washing cavolo nero in a warehouse.
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‘Cooking from root-to-fruit saves food, money and enables you to buy better ingredients’ … Tom Hunt. Photograph: Elena Heatherwick/Guardian
Cavolo nero and walnut dip
Makes 500g
250g cavolo nero (or green kale)
120ml extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
1 small garlic clove, peeled
2 tbsp thick live yoghurt
50g strong hard goat’s cheese, diced
50g walnuts
20g stale bread, torn into pieces (optional)
Salt and black pepper, to taste
1 Place the blanched leaves and stalks in a blender with the rest of the ingredients, except the walnuts.
2 Blend to a rough puree, stir in the crushed walnuts and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve.
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