Ok, I have just finished reading Thomas L. Friedman’s latest book; Hot, Flat and Crowded. The book got me really thinking, and I find myself looking at way of being ‘green’. I attended a workshop at a five star hotel in Johannesburg recently, and couldn’t stand how my fellow attendees would request the aircon to be turned up and down every hour. I suggested we simply open and close one of the doors to regulate the heat. It worked, I smiled.
Besides being the right thing to do, going green can also have financial benefits. Let’s look at the blog’s area of interest: food. The most obvious one is going organic. You save a fortune in chemicals, etc. and organic produce fetches a premium. If only they could relax the requirements for a farm to be certified organic. That would definitely better the lives of many African farmers. My dad used to drive to surrounding rural areas, and get kraal manure for our garden. To this day, our garden remains chemical free. The ‘green gold’ that grows wildly in some patches is testimony to this.
What can restaurants do to help the green revolution? Firstly, they can operate smart. Do we really need restaurants to open from 10h00 till 22h00? Lets be honest, no one on a Tuesday morning is going to order a T-bone steak and onion rings, unless they went out the night before. This is what I would do if I were a restaurateur. Let’s assume I own a steak house. I would open for lunch and dinner only. This way I don’t have to keep my grills on the whole day. My lunch menu would be smaller meals, which are fairly quickly to make. Offer salads and stir fried veggies instead of starch that takes longer to cook. If I have stews as part of the menu, these would be prepared in the early morning.
I would also encourage other restaurants to follow suit. I would tell the pizzeria next door, that chances of people having pizza before sunset on a weekday are pretty slim. They are better off opening at 15h30, incase some people decide to leave work early. The deli selling gourmet Italian breakfasts and sandwiches should close by 17h00.
The’ less is more’ maxim is also part of operating smart. How many times have you sprained your wrist trying to hold and page through the monstrous menu. I now wonder how many trees it takes to produce the paper in some of these menus. A board against the wall, or go techno and have a flat screen TV (sola powered of course) displaying your menu. Keep your menu items as few as possible, and change the menu every few months based on availability of produce.
If you take one of these fifteen page menus, walk to the kitchen and ask the chef when he last prepared the beef stroganoff on page 8, he would in all probability shrug his shoulders. But the fridge has to carry the ingredients, in case someone feels like a stroganoff. Think of the place that offers ice cream in the middle of winter. The freezer is packed with ice cream tubs that will have to be eaten by the staff.
Through analysis of patron patterns and having suppliers in close proximity, a restaurateur can keep his stock to an absolute minimum. This can easily translate to fresher produce.
There, I challenge restaurants to develop and implement a ‘green programme’ and lets see how that goes.
15 comments:
why must we go green?
Going green or the "green program" as you put might have severe consequences... one of them would be unemployment because should the restaurant open at 15h00 instead of 08h00 then that would mean the steak house will do with just 2 dishwashers instead of the usual 3 and 1 griller apart from the usual 3grillers and I think quality will be compromised as well I mean there are steak houses out there that still open shop with the previous day delights termed as "prep food".
Personally I think the green concept should start at home meaning NO EATING OUT: grow veggies in your own back yard, ufuye inkukhu neegusha and grow herbs to add taste to your food. But then again we live a fast paced life, we don't have space in our backyards and not everyone has the time to plant veggies which is why restaurants open at 08h00 in the morning! It is a challenge indeed...
Mavo, its the right thing to do.
But Namhla, surely there is more to life than jobs. You are also contradicting yourself. If you grow your own veggies, etc. then all the farmers and the guys they supply will run out of business.
Anonymous.... you should read a book called Cosmopolitanism where this guy argues that we shouldnt feel guilty for going to the opera after throwing away the OXFAM donation request form.
How do you find someone a job?
The same way you got your job. The point about employment is not finding jobs but more creating them. If in your solution for the enviroment you can factor job creation, then my friend I'd say you have a 1st world solution for the 3rd world; and if you do that with in the realm of Gastronomy; my hat off to you!
No one found me my job, I applied for it. Should I buy unemployed people papers?
Hey hey, this is not an ILO blog, its about food. he he he
I think greening can create jobs for the 3rd world. The reason we are not making any cash from agriculture is that the first world subsidises and pumps chemicals into their produce to make it look superior to the organic, chemical free stuff from poor communities.
I applaud South Korea for what they have done recently. They have leased half of Madagascar's arable land to grow crops for South Korea's growing apetite. Labourers will come from Madagascar, guess where the skilled farmers and researchers will come from? South Africa.
This deal has the fingerprints of Mbeki all over it.
Hey Darkie, Let's stick to gastronomic issues here. The matter at hand is your suggestion that we should go green at the food front. My point is simple; 3rd worlds are green my friend. If you have moral issues with the environment you should talk to the G7; 80% of house gases come from them which then means if you improve emissions in the 3rd worlds even by 90% it only accounts for less than 20% of the problem. Now narrow that down to the food outlets; marginal to a point of no real impact. My suggestion to you; tell us what's on the menu?
He he he.
I hear you, its the first world that is polluting the earth and they should be the ones playing a major role in sorting it out. Reality is that when there is a drought, the first world can easily desalinate sea water, subsidise their farmers to grow dought resistant crops and weather the storm.
We wont.
Truth is whether we like or not the climate is changing as a result of human activities which have changed our atmosphere and the land surface. We may be facing a collapse of our civilisation as we know it because of these changes. There will come a time when one wishes they shouldn’t have ordered that medium-rare steak. Personally I think it’s too late for any kind of change so I'll have that steak with chips and a salad please, whilst you’re at it please put that air-conditioner on full blast! Ngiyabonga mina!
Maybe have a monitoring regime where restaurants have to use local produce within a certain kilometre radius of where they operate factoring in the availability in that area.Also have punitive measures liking threatning to revoke a licence for non compliance.
The restaurants can give 25% discount on patrons arriving in a prius and 50% on those arriving in a solar taxi.
Last anonymous.... I agree fully. If they use local produce then that means less fuel spent on transporting the food from supplier to your plate.
I agree Wabo, and in some areas you can even have people using bicycles to cycle to the bakery round the corner and grab a muffin.
See, it can be done. Small steps but when you add them up they come up to something.
You are getting lazy my boy! Why do you post only one item a week? Is the traffic to your site that Bad? Come now, get those juices flowing my friend. Let's see what the Mzantsi Darkie knows about food and what can he really tell us about food. Look at it this way, generally we have more food than sex and yet if your blog was about sex, you'll be running ad spaces on your blog as premium. The question is; can you make talking about food interesting as sex?
He he he he he
Maybe I should do a blog on sex food. Not bananas and cucumbers, but food to have while having sex.
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