A FEW MONTHS ago, I did something I had wanted to do for years: I went to Ceasa early in the morning to see the fish sold wholesale.
I had an idealized image of what it would be like: a beautiful myriad of very fresh fish. It was a shock.
I saw injured tuna, mountains of headless and frozen dogfish, fish thrown carelessly. I discovered that fish without a market, caught in nets by accident, are thrown into “mix” boxes, sold for change.
In these leftover boxes, there is everything - including delicious small fish. It's a shame that small fish don't have an audience.
While most starred restaurants receive their fish already cleaned and divided into fillets, some chefs turn their attention to what the fishmongers throw away.
Some people's trash is gold for others: chef Rodrigo Oliveira has fried chicken wings on the menu at his Mocotó. He asked a producer in Mato Grosso do Sul to, instead of discarding them, send them to him.
Thiago Castanho, from Remanso do Bosque, in Belém (PA), makes a beautiful crackling from the pirarucu skin.
Not only do we make less use of fish than we should: what a restaurant throws away during a day of chopping vegetables and cutting meat makes a feast.
A fierce defender of respect for ingredients, chef Normand Laprise, from the Toqué restaurant (the equivalent of DOM, in Montréal), recently served a sophisticated six-course dinner using only leftovers taken from the local market's trash cans.
Dishes made from trimmings can be as refined or even more refined than a rack of lamb or a slice of sea bass: you just need to know how to get the most out of the ingredient. So says chef Roberta Sudbrack, who has long been cooking with okra seeds, banana peels and corn “hair”.
When I recently tried the ambitious tasting menu at Agapé Substance, a popular restaurant in Paris, I was served truffles and sea urchin. But do you know which dish was the favorite? A potato peel consommé.
Sustainable and conscious proposals are changing world gastronomy.
Source: Folha de São Paulo - THE GOURMET - ALEXANDRA FORBES