SUSTAINABLE DINING A Suitable Plate
How chefs,
restaurateurs and food producers are working together on sustainable dining, a
movement that is slowly gathering pace
At Vrindavan Farm in Palghar -a couple of hours from Mumbai -a
harvest of seasonal fruits and greens is ready, all set to be trans ported to
owner Gaytri Bhatia's home in Churchgate. From there it will be distributed to
restaurants and bakeries, and picked up by individual clients. A newsletter,
listing the week's harvest, has already gone out to subscribers. It's almost as
if all of nature's bounty has gathered in one place, with doodhi, moringa
leaves, cashew apples, tomatillos and yams forming part of the harvest. The
farmland is home to nearly 500 mango trees and, in season, these yield 3,000 to
7,000 kilos of the fruit.
Bhatia, a former environmental analyst with the US Environmental
Protection Agency in Boston, moved back to Palghar nearly six years back to
manage her family land. Today, the farm supplies produce to restaurants such as
Olive Bar and Kitchen, 212 All Good, Kala Ghoda Café and The Pantry. “We
specialise in seasonal, heir loom and indigenous. For instance, the tribes here
depended on the moringa leaf more than spinach as it is way more nutritious
and is endemic to the area. We have brought it to the fine dining table.
Farmers have information on what's in season and what's local. We need to take
it to the chef, who brings it to the plates. Together, we form a tight
ecosystem to spread the knowledge of quality local food,“ she says.
Today, chefs and restaurateurs are working with producers such
as Bhatia to further the cause of sustainable dining -a movement which started
haltingly a couple of years ago, but is slowly gathering pace in India. Today,
you find artisanal salts being sourced from Himalayan villages, tree-to-bar
chocolates, honey produced by the Apis cerana, a bee species native to
Uttarakhand, and farmer groups in West Bengal being tapped for black rice.
According to an article on the website of the Food and Agriculture
Organization, sustainable local procurement is the need of the hour. “The term
means that in addition to food produced near its point of consumption, other
sustainability themes are also considered, such as: food sovereignty, fair
pricing and environmental conservation. At the heart of the local food
movement, is the goal to establish healthy communities and sustainable regional
agricultural economies,“ it states.
Thou
Shalt Not Overfish
Given that the movement is still young, the definition of
sustainable dining is still dependent on individual chef 's ethos and food
philosophy. For Manu Chandra, chef-partner, Toast & Tonic, The Fatty Bao
and Monkey Bar, it is about giving back to the planet. “Sustainability is not
to be confused with organic.The ecosystem needs to keep replenishing itself.
However, the way we are eating is allowing for anything but that. We are
overfishing, over-foraging, over-farming,“ he says. There is a constant attempt
to bring certain foods in vogue and over-consume them. According to the
Chandra, the biggest victims have been the fish. “Over fishing has led to a
point of no return for a lot of species,“ he says. It is for this reason that
he works with vendors from Kochi, who fish only in certified waters.
According to Know Your Fish, a voluntary initiative that
encourages consumers to eat seafood responsibly and adopt an ocean-friendly
lifestyle, 90% of the world's fisheries are now fully exploited or have collapsed.
It is to remedy this that the ITC Hotels has become India's first participant
in World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) Choose Wisely programme aimed at promoting
informed choices on fish consumption.
WWF has designed visual indicators -red (endangered), orange
(declining) and green (healthy)-to help cus tomers. The ITC Hotels has taken
this a step further by eliminating the red species from its kitchen.
Know Your Fish has come up with an ocean-sensitive seafood
calendar for India's west coast, which has caught the eye of many chefs. A
team of researchers has listed the months best to eat fish and the ones to
avoid. The team requests consumers to spare the fish during the breeding
season and when they are young. For in stance, according to available literature,
most of the breeding for king fish takes place between October and November, so
it is suggested that one avoid eating it in these two months.
Besides adhering to such guidelines, there are certain internal
checks that chefs follow when choosing the right kind of producers. They visit
the facilities often and examine the soil, seeds and growing practices. Manish
Sharma, executive chef, The Oberoi, Gurgaon, makes sure that they “choose crops
well-suited for their local growing conditions, minimise use of synthetic
pesticides, and avoid groundwater for irrigation“. Sharma is drawn to
passionate first-generation entrepreneurs and small farms who are innovative.
His key vendors include First Agro from Karnataka for lettuce, tomatoes and
vegetables; butternut squash from Offering Farms in Pune, mushrooms from
Swadeshi Mushrooms, Delhi, quail and chicken from French Farms, Gurgaon, and
cheese from Spotted Cow in Mumbai.
Tree-to-Bar
Chocolate
Karthikeyan Palaniswamy of Regal Chocolates claims to be India's first tree-to-bar chocolate maker. “Bean-to-bar is a huge trend in the US. As part of that, chocolate makers source their beans from a separate farm. We breed our own trees, hence are completely in control of the chocolate-making process, from the growing to the fermentation of beans and the tempering of the chocolate bar,“ he says. This single origin chocolate is made in a group of farms spread across 220 acres, nestled at the foothills of the Annamalai range, where sustainable practices of permaculture and aquaculture are followed. Only indigenous breeds of cattle, zebu, are used to manage the land.
Palaniswamy, together with his brother-inlaw Manoj, came up with
this idea nearly three years ago. The duo visited cacao farms in Vietnam and
Cambodia, and with bean-to-bar chocolate makers in the US, to get a better
understanding of the processes and finally set up a fermentation facility. “It
has taken us 18 to 20 months to put everything together. We came up with baking
bars, Regal, last year and then in February this year, we launched edible bars
called Soklet,“ he says. The brand has added another laurel to its hat. At the
International Chocolate Awards 2017, Dubai-based chocolate brand, Mirzam, won a
silver medal for its single-origin 62% bar made using Regal's beans. “This is
the first time that an Indian bean has won such an accolade,“ says Palaniswamy.
Today, he works with Toast & Tonic, The Fatty Bao, Olive Beach as well as
bakeries such as Bliss in Delhi, besides supplying beans to bean-to-bar makers
in the US and the Middle East.
Amaranth
Beats Quinoa
Yet another key player in the sustainable food movement is
Delhi-based Original Indian Table, cofounded by Puneet Jhajharia and Ishira
Mehta, which gets indigenous ingredients straight from farmers to restaurants.
A former venture capitalist, Jhajharia started in 2013 by visiting farmers in
20 states to help them market their produce efficiently, and thereby raise
their incomes. “We realised that farmers were consuming sustainable food such
as millets and amaranth, but there was hardly any market out there,“ he says.
However, the past two to three years have brought about a change in consumer
behaviour. With an epidemic of lifestyle diseases, people want to eat healthy
and are looking for the right options. “We are trying to bridge that gap
between farmers and consumers. We work with 20 farmer groups from Ladakh,
Uttarakhand, West Bengal and Kerala and more to supply to restaurants such as
AnnaMaya at Andaz in Delhi's Aerocity, ITC Hotels, Olive Beach, the Park Group,
The Bombay Canteen and the Leela. We also retail in spaces such as Foodhall,“
says Jhajharia. The hope is that as the business scales up, it will have a
direct impact on the number of farmers growing these varieties and they will
get the price they deserve. In the past couple of years, he has seen demand for
black rice from Bengal shoot up, so much so that they ran out of stock last
year. “Amaranth has also seen a gradual pick-up, as it is more nutritious than
quinoa.Another interesting product is timur, which is akin to Sichuan pepper
and grows in Uttarakhand. Chef Alex Moser uses it beautifully in a lamb dish at
AnnaMaya,“ he says.
Moser has carved out a name for himself for creating AnnaMaya, a
European food hall that inspires guests to “Eat Mindful. Shop Artisanal. Raise
Awareness“.
“While sourcing a product, I go by the AnnaMaya ideology of Made
in India as all products have to be produced in the country, must have a socially
inspiring story behind the busi ness execution and their current business
module must be socially relevant in order to help communities and their
respective environments,“ says Moser. His producers range from Artisan Palate
for flavoured, natural Himalayan Pink Salt, Devbhumi for Himalayan honey,
Original Indian Table for timur, bhangjeera salt, bamboo rice and amaranth
flour, Luvin Paryani for bean-to-bar chocolate, and more. “I go according to
the suppliers' produce, what is grown by them at what time and the quantity of
their production. My menu is designed and redone according to seasonal
deliveries,“ says Moser.
This is a philosophy that is followed by chef Paul Kinny of 212
All Good in Mumbai and Gresham Fernandes, culinary director of Riyaaz Amlani's
Impresario Handmade Restaurants as well. Both try to look for local
alternatives of high quality, if and when possible. For instance, for adzuki
beans and miso, Kinny taps the small Japanese community in Uttarakhand, which
produces these. Fernandes even makes his balsamic vinegar from scratch using
local produce such as beetroot juice and local port wine. “In Mumbai, we try
and source everything from Bandra, except for fish, which we get from seafood
specialist Off The Hook. Our cheese comes from Kodaikanal,“ he says. Kinny
works closely with Bhatia of Vrindavan Farm for moringa leaves and tendli.
“People usually get pickled gherkins from France. But in Mumbai, we get the
tendli, which has a similar texture. Why not look inwards?“ he asks.
Bhatia is all praise for the team at 212 All Good for presenting
sustainable produce in a fun way. The team has even sourced ingredients such as
hibiscus, green pepper and gentian roots from her to make their bitters
inhouse. “We grow local mulberry, which is smaller than the one available in
the market, and then dehydrate it. So, when Tanai Shirali, mixologist from 212,
comes to me and says let me make gin with it, it's quite exciting. We can offer
the produce and knowledge, but chefs need to present that to the consumers in a
fun and innovative way,“ she says.
Some hotels and restaurants are taking the sustainability
movement beyond the produce as well. For instance, ITC is the only hotel chain
to introduce at its establishments zero-miletravelled water in glass bottles to
reduce plastic waste. At 11 of its hotels, leftover oils from the kitchens are
shared with companies engaged in generating biofuels through oil.
Fernandes too is looking at eliminating plastic -cups, takeaway
packets -from his restaurants by year-end and is looking at working with bamboo
and banana alternatives.
Of course, these endeavours come with their share of challenges.
“At this point of time, I don't think restaurants can work entirely with
sustainable produce. There are organic suppliers in the market, but one doesn't
know how reliable the certification process is, unlike in the US where this
space is more regulated,“ says Gauri Devidayal, cofounder of the Colaba
restaurant The Table. So she gets produce from her own farm in Alibaug as she knows
the seeds and soil. “It's heartening to see that restaurants are trying to
bring about a positive change, but consumers are still a bit hesitant in paying
a premium price for the food. Logistics are still an issue as cold storage
transportation is next to nonexistent,“ she says. Her thoughts are echoed by
Fernandes, who feels that customers want standardised products. “Now apple and
celery vinegar made from local produce in Mumbai would taste very different
from the one in Delhi because of the difference in bloom and terroir, but
people want standardisation. Hence, this can be done for standalone
restaurants, but is difficult to replicate for chains,“ he says.
Price parity is not applicable in most cases where sustainable
dining is concerned. The output is far superior, from a qualitative
perspective, but is a fraction of industrial produce from a quantitative point
of view. It is this scenario of high demand and low supply that leads to most
people opting for massproduced goods. Sustainable practices are difficult
simply because there are just so many mouths to feed. “But this is not a hollow
pipe dream,“ says Chandra. “We are not a 100% sustainable restaurant yet, but
now there are suppliers who are bringing about a change and are happy to be
supplying to establishments.“
Avantika Bhuyan
ETM27AUG17
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