Sustainable cooking: Sustainability is the way forward if we want the Earth to remain habitable for our future generations. More than just being a buzzword, sustainability is immersing itself in different aspects of our lives, be it in fashion, in our everyday living, travelling, and even cooking. While sustainable living and sustainable travel have been increasingly becoming the norm, sustainable cooking is still catching up. Now, in a bid to recognise this effort, FoodSuperstars platform has awarded Chef Manisha Bhasin with the ‘Sustainable Chef’ award for her initiative to drive forward the pillar of sustainability in the culinary world.
Launched by Culinary Culture as the first and only awards platform for chefs in India, FoodSuperstars released an annual ranking of 30 chefs in India, while also giving a special mention to six chefs, of which Chef Bhasin was one. Talking to financialexpress.com, Culinary Culture Chairman Raaj Sanghvi said, “Today, everybody thinks that they have to show that they’re doing something about sustainability and zero waste kitchens and green practices. However, Manisha started doing it when nobody cared about it and she worked quietly. She’s not a famous chef if you ask the average consumer. She kept her head down and kept doing this. She not only became the corporate chef of the whole group, which means that every single chef associated with the ITC reports to her, but she also changed the practices across the group. If you look at all the awards the ITC has won, it’s the most sustainable kitchen in India, and it is partly due to this woman.”
Financialexpress.com also spoke to Chef Manisha Bhasin to understand sustainability in cooking and how innovation and sustainability can go hand in hand. Edited excerpts:
How do you feel about winning the Sustainable Chef award? What are your views about this celebration of chefs in India?
I think it’s a great initiative by Mr Sanghvi. It’s a platform for the chefs to get recognised and perhaps not only the restaurant, but of course the individual inputs that the chefs would have given to create that restaurant. I think it’s the first of its kind in India, so we all eagerly look forward to doing this properly going further.
The chef fraternity has been eagerly looking forward to something like this. It’s a great progress for us to be on the world map and not look outwards to see whether they can come and recognise us. Instead, we can create a platform where Indian chefs get their due credit, which is heartening to see.
You are a proponent of sustainability, especially sustainable cooking. So why is sustainability in cooking the key?
I look at sustainability from a different perspective. I don’t only look at it for the food. It’s got to be a way of life. We have seen that during the pandemic that there were no imported ingredients available, and the chefs were looking inwards at what was available. And that is when I guess some awakening at a different level started where people learned to respect what India as the cuisine ingredients had to offer, be it turmeric or ginger.
In fact, there is another perspective. When you use something that is grown locally, you are not only using something what is good for your body, but you’re also creating employment. You’re also helping the economy and the country at large, so there is a multi-prong approach. To me, sustainability does not mean that I go back to making traditional food because I also understand that today’s younger generation has been exposed to international cuisines as well. I know that they want to incorporate these ingredients in their own way on their own plates. So that is where the chefs must step in and try to create excitement with the local food as well, while at the same time explore it to international flavours.
Sustainability to me also means minimising the waste. There is an abundance of green peas today, and I remember my grandmother used to make ‘subzi’ (dish) out of these peels. Everyone was doing it at one time. But people did not understand that it was not to save money, but to eliminate waste. Today, we talk about root to shoot – meaning that we use every part of the plant. But root to shoot has actually been a part of our culinary heritage for the last maybe 300-400 years.
Those practices are coming back now. I also feel as a chef that it’s important to explore and see how that can be incorporated into your plate with a twist because you want these practices to go a long way. You want these practices to stay with the generations.
There is this massive problem of food wastage, especially in outlets or eating joints in general, be it high-end restaurants or smaller establishments, what do you think can be done to reduce this wastage?
There are two ways to look at it. One is, of course, creating awareness amongst the associates and staff on food wastage, which is very important. It not only helps in wastage control, but also helps in controlling the cost. The other one is mostly the plate waste that happens on the buffet.
However, I have seen off late that there is an awareness amongst the diners also about this. I’ve been in the industry for the last 30 years and I know the food waste that used to happen, perhaps, in those times was significantly high as compared to what it is today.
In a buffet, or a flying buffet if a guest does not want to get up and go to the buffet tables, guests can pick up plates and they know they can go back and get more food, again and again if need be. So, that has led to some decrease in the wastage, but yes we still have some path to cover on that front.
How did you proceed with your innovations while also keeping sustainability in focus?
ITC Hotels believes we are the initial pioneer in sustainability and responsible luxury. So, we have various components in our menus. We have Swastik cuisine where we explored these ancient ingredients, ancient food wisdom and used it to create food that not only tastes good, but is also good for your soul and your body. Also, we have multiple programmes like an alert menu wherein we add foods which elicit a low glycemic response. That means that if you are having a conference in one of our hotels, for instance, you would pick up this menu because normally people do feel a little lethargic and a little sleepy after their lunches so low glycemic food can keep them awake.
What is done is that the refined flour, refined sugar, etc are removed and vegetables which are low on glycemic index are used more. These are the foods you use to create the menu and it need not necessarily be an Indian menu. It could be Western or Chinese. It could be anything that you want it to be.
Another thing we have done is that we have a menu called local love, where local street food is presented to the guests from the safety, quality and convenience of a five-star kitchen. The menu depends on the place where the property is located. What is happening here is that we are using the local produce and are creating a market for their farmers. We are also attempting to make people aware of what they can do with that local produce, and maybe when they go back home, they can purchase it.
What are some of the common myths around sustainable cooking that you would like to break?
I think the most common myth is that a lot of people think that sustainable food is only vegetarian. It is also non-vegetarian. For example, we have tied up with WWF and we only use fish which are available in plenty in the ocean and the rivers. So we do not serve any fish which is near extinction or heading towards that. So, we have a programme where these fishes are tagged in a red, orange and a green icon. The green ones are what we promote and we say that this is what we must have. We do not have any of the orange or the red ones on our menus.
Another common myth is that sustainable food may not be very tasty. One more is, perhaps, that all sustainable food has to be Indian food, which is not true. You can cook any cuisine but if you use the local ingredients to replace the imported ingredients, that’s sustainable. It is possible in today’s day and age because there are so many growers, farmers and producers who are creating a great ingredient profile.
How can a common man who has minimal cooking, innovation and equipment ensure that they are eating sustainably on their own?
Equipment opens another aspect to sustainability. I don’t believe in microwave cooking.
I think if you want to cook Indian food you need to cook it in the Indian utensils that are designed to cook that food. There is a certain flavour that gets imparted to the food when you cook it in a certain kind of vessel with a certain shape.
That is what sustainability is all about. Common man does not need to get into gadgets. He should know what is locally available within maybe 50 kilometres. He should go and buy fresh vegetables.
There are multiple ways to look at these things. If a common man just follows the way his parents and grandparents lived and if we also follow the way our parents and our grandparents lived, then that is a sustainable way of eating to me.