Food waste is a pretty serious issue when you consider the context of the bigger picture; the overall need of a society to be able to live within its means, in a sustainable and responsible manner where production and consumption are in balance within every compartment of a system. Sorry, this is a pretty heavy start, but things do get a bit easier later on in the article! Resources on this planet are finite, although they can cycle round they can be used up and also locked up into a form that is rendered of no future use to us. This leaves us as a species with some pretty strong consequences, though these are at the extreme end of a spectrum, all the way points to an uninhabitable environment do make for a bit of a horror show. The Earth will continue on without us, regardless of our actions, it has the ability to exist and continue with other life getting along and adapting, it is the change in our environment that will be our demise (if it ever came to that!). Like I say, hot and heavy for an introduction, but I felt it important to instill some context into why I engaged in the exercise I am about the explain. For those that don’t know me, my day job is as an Environmental Scientist. This role has always been about balancing satisfying the needs of a client and trying to push best environmental practice, sustainability and safety for every project. Working day-to-day in a waste management team, I have gained a deeper understanding of what happens to our rubbish once it is collected from the wheelie bins, crates, bags and caddies sitting on the kerbside on collection day. Speaking on to friends and people who do not work in this industry, it is often a preconception among many that waste all either goes to a landfill or into a big factory where all the waste is magically sorted and recycled. Whilst there is some truth in this, it is also massively over simplifying matters. So, consider your own behaviour, how good are you at separating your rubbish at home? Does the odd banana skin or a few potato peelings make their way into the box for recyclables, plastics, glass and metals? Do you try and make the most of off-cuts from vegetables and fruit, or do you throw away half-used tins of beans away as they have grown mouldy? Not only does this behaviour waste a resource and place additional pressure on the Environment (okay, hyperbole to an extent – but if everyone does this… that is a lot of waste and energy lost), on top of this, there’s the waste of money. The mixing of wet food waste in with recyclable materials can make it impossible for reclamation of materials like plastics, metals, paper and glass – even with gradually improving reclamation technologies we currently have at our disposal. Looking at the waste hierarchy (above), the prevention of generation of waste is the first action for sustainability, with the next stage is to ensure the waste is separated into the correct fractions for collection by your local waste authority. For example, avoid putting food/contaminated plastic food trays in recycling bin with other recyclable materials. Try to use up as much food as possible and avoid binning it – at least try to compost it at home or putting it into a food caddy for composting by the waste collection authority. Another potential outlet, albeit one of limited scope for most of us is to pass on scraps to anyone who keeps chickens or pigs (Although always consult owners and veterinary advice before doing so!). Recently, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has been presenting a series trying to curtail the food waste on a large scale, with supermarkets dictating to producers what they should be growing and providing to the shelves. As you may or may not have seen, this produces a large amount of ‘ugly’ vegetables and fruit (which are often anything but) which the supermarkets will not take, due to it being ‘off-specification’. This is waste on a huge scale and when considering the rise of foodbanks and food charities, a pretty sickening blemish on us as a society. You can follow Hugh’s exploits here: [https://twitter.com/HughsWaronWaste] and get involved here [https://wastenotuk.com]. So what else can be done on a ‘ground level’ in our kitchens? One of the best ways to cut down on food waste is to get good in the kitchen and at cooking. Learning to cook is a gradual process, just like any other skill, developed by trial and error, repetition, practice and no little imagination. Though there are a few things you can do to get started and ensure that you are prepared to make the most of the fresh and perishable items you cook with; - Stock up on dry and tinned goods, even frozen items such as peas and sweetcorn can be used to add ballast to many dishes, including soups and risottos. Herbs and spices are key in providing flavour to dishes where there a lack of ‘focal point’ and bring something to the fore as that focus. As a rule of thumb in my kitchen, I always have pearly barley, various beans dark and lentils in dried form, dried soya mince (just add fried onions and dark soy sauce whilst frying – works to produce something that works instead of beef mince). Ensure you have tinned chopped tomatoes and tinned chickpeas available – always ready to make a quick homemade curry. - Try to be clever with what you buy in the first place; some vegetables will keep in there fridge or cupboard longer (carrots, potatoes, squashes, leek and, celery) than softer, more perishable items (most fruit, peppers, herbs and salad leaves). - Go ‘off road’ with your cooking. Recipes are often only a guideline when you’re cooking at home; a lot of dishes which are considered ‘classics’ only became so because certain items were available abundantly in a given region and seasonally. There is little need to buy everything you need for a single one-off dish, only to find yourself struggling to use up certain items left over from what you’ve bought following the preparation of the one-off masterpiece! This is where a bit of cooking initiative comes into play and good cooks thrive. It isn’t a difficult skill to learn, just ask around if in doubt, read up and practice. There are plenty of resources out there to help you learn to think of your feet whilst cooking. - Keep off-cuts of vegetables in a sealed plastic tub in the fridge – by the end of the week you’ll have a small pile of vegetables which whilst unappetising, can be boiled up with some herbs. Herbs such as thyme, bay, peppercorns and cardamom pods can help produce a lovely vegetable stock as a base for gravy, soups or even for addition to curries and stews. If you’re feeling brave, you can even blend down some of the softer elements from the boil to leave in the soup and provide a bit of texture and roughage. - In relation to the last point, this is where you need to too-up; utensils and cooking gadgets can be a life saver – I would struggle in a kitchen now where I didn’t have a blender and a slow cooker to draw up for certain dishes which are good for using up leftover food. - Inspect your fridge daily; are there any smaller items left over and lurking at the back of the shelves? Are there small bags of herbs or salad buried under newer items of food? If the latter results in a yes, then bring those items back to the top and find a use for them. - If you find it helps, plan your meals out a week at a time, this approach is often favoured by families and will help with those less able to think on their feet with an ad-hoc cooking approach. - Making extra; If you have made too much food, you can set a portion aside and put this into a plastic takeaway box (available from curry houses or chinese takeaways, failing this, from oriental or specialist supermarkets) which will readily freeze down. These will then be ready to be used up as a homemade microwave meal. Better than a supermarket sandwich and often better than a takeaway, depending on what you have prepared! - If you have room, maybe consider getting a compost bin for the food you don’t use, this can be spread on the garden and even used to feed and provide a growing medium for your own herbs, fruit and vegetables. - There are no stupid questions; if you’re struggling to know what to do, how to cook or get an idea how to cut down on wasted food, there are plenty of websites out there now. I have spent a good deal of time looking at my own cooking habits recently, and although I have been resourceful, there is always room for improvement. This is why I joined in with the HubbubUK #ExpressYourShelf Challenge, following their kind invitation to do so in October of this year. The hashtag and challenge were used to highlight any tips that food bloggers or other interested parties could pass on to other people via social media to improve their cooking habits and techniques, not to mention the passing on of potentially excellent home economy advice. The outcome of such a challenge is to hopefully limit and where possible, eradicate food waste. The challenge was also carried out in conjunction with Tesco and Society and the Love Food, Hate Waste campaign. https://www.hubbub.org.uk/Event/express-your-shelf https://twitter.comTescoandSociety http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/ By a bit of awkward timing, I wasn’t in a difficult position food-wise; I received the invitation to join in after I had been on the weekly shop and as such, wasn’t forced to into the position of showing off my initiative, although I like to think I did my best and used what tricks I could over several twitter broadcasts during the last couple of weeks in October. This meant I had to be a little more creative in developing the tips I was sharing, though it wasn’t impossible; getting into good habits and using up as much food as you buy doesn’t necessarily mean getting by on scraps all the time. It is more about just being clever about what you have in and how you use it at any given time. I would advise anyone interested in trying to improve their own home economics and cooking to try the approaches above and have a look at the links provided if they think they can improve. I certainly learned a few things over the course of this exercise! Pedro.
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ucked away in an arcade off Southport’s Chapel Street and Lord Street is an unassuming little shop with quite an Aladdin’s Cave of beery treasure. Southport hasn’t had much of a presence for bottle shops until the Inn Beer shop opened a few years ago, but now things have taken a leap forward, whilst the former supplies some excellent continental stock, Tap and Bottles have introduced craft keg lines alongside cask and a rather exciting array of bottles. On the odd evening, Tap and Bottles also host Meet the Brewer nights at their premises to give some added social dimension to their bar. Tap and Bottle stock beers from Buxton, Pressure Drop, Red Church, Mad Hatter Brewery, Kees, Fell Brewery, Mikkeller and many many more. This is yet another establishment, only a stone’s throw from the train station where it would be easy to lose a lot of time poring over the selection of bottles, without even considering what they have on tap. I managed to catch up with Tap and Bottles’ Luke Randles, who passed on some responses to a little quiz: So, who are the main players in Tap and Bottles and why did you feel Southport was a good place for such a venue? “JB (Owner/Spreadsheet Ninja) and myself, Luke (Manager/Beer Nerd). Jen, Joe, Mark and Alex make up the rest of our great team. Primarily, we felt like Southport had the space for a hub of cask ale, so we decided to constantly rotate some of our favourite cask breweries like Salopian, Hawskhead, Thornbridge, Barngates, Liverpool Craft, Moor, Oakham, Arbor etc - I could go on forever. Then it was about bringing the craft beer to our little seaside town. Our eight taps (four of which feature craft beer) are as popular now as our four cask ales are… so we like to think it’s mission accomplished. JB and I nearly had a crisis of confidence before we opened; when we sat down and thought, we love big IPA’s and boozy impy stouts… but will the people of Southport like them? Fortunately for us, they do… and we’re finding a there is a greater appeal than ever for interesting beers that break the norm and challenge the palate.” What would you consider to be your best sellers/back bone breweries for sales? “It is difficult to judge our bet sellers as all our beer constantly rotates and changes…but i’ll try. Cask-wise we have Titanic Plum Porter that is always a big hit, as it is in most pubs. Anything interesting and tasty that’s not stocked anywhere else tends to fly out (eg. Siren, Keg: We fly through key-kegs of Beavertown and Mad Hatter in no time. Again, anything interesting sells… recent examples would be Weird Beard - Defacer (11.1% Sorachi TIPA) and Omnipollo - Fatamoranga (beautiful Swedish Wheat IPA) in Bottles and Cans. We usually have a whole shelf (24 bottles) dedicated to Mad Hatter…so they certainly grab peoples attention as they walk in the shop. Lots of Beavertown cans sell well too… Amager Bryghus and To øl (Denmark) go really well also.” Are there any exciting breweries you'll be stocking stuff from in the run up to Christmas? “We’re going to dedicate a tap each to Thornbridge, Mad Hatter and Beavertown for the next few weeks which will be pretty fun. We’ve got Belgian Halcyon (Thornbridge) which is on at the moment and tasting great. Cask for the next few weeks features Ilkley and Tempest which we’re excited about.” What MTBs do you have coming up... how often do you hold them? “So, I guess I have to talk about Beer Club in this section. It’s our baby…our pride and joy…the day of the month we look forward to most. Beer Club is a night we hold monthly, were we host a quality brewery and invite our customers to come in a drink from our set menu, while putting up with myself and the brewer in question ranting on about hops, malts and other mundanities. Luckily it’s been a huge success, and we’ve been delighted to have often welcomed 40+ beer nerds into the bar for the Club (considering our small town and the we host the event on a Wednesday night…we’re even prouder!) So far we’ve hosted Mad Hatter, Hawskhead, Track, Ad Hop, HardKnott and Liverpool Craft. Unfortunately… I’m keeping our next brewer a secret for now!” What a lovely chap…
Hope you enjoyed the read this month guys, see you again soon – in the mean time, go and pop in to see the guys at Tap and Bottles, marvel at the selection and have a beer or two with them, you’ll be amazed how quickly time goes. Anwyay, there’ll be another bottle shop and bottle review coming for December, with a big wide and sweeping bottle round up (for your Christmas ideas) from across the area, so keep your eyes peeled!
Pedro. ------------------------------------------------- Tap and Bottles 19 Cambridge Walks Chapel Street Southport Merseyside PR8 1EU Tel: 01704 544322 Twitter: https://twitter.com/TapandBottles Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tapandbottles |
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