Refettorio Ambrosiano Recipes from Milan, Italy by Ruth Paget
After attending an expo on world hunger in Milan (Italy), chef Massimo Bottura and other world famous chefs used the surplus food available in Milan to make meals for the homeless at the city’s Refettorio Ambrosiano that qualify as no food waste, delicious, nutritious, and economical to make.
The Milan Refettorio Ambrosiano can operate thanks to help from markets and farms that provide:
-less than perfect looking, but still good produce
-produce with 2 or 3 days left to sell that cannot keep for a long time
-organizing food in crates for storage and delivery at the donor site
-people to drive the produce from the donor site to the refettorio
-refrigerated pantries to deal with Milan’s heat at the refettorio
Five of the stand-out, no food waste recipes in the Bread is Gold cookbook are economical to make with fresh ingredients for the home cook as well:
*Summer vegetables with bean broth and croutons – The broth is made with water and boiled Parmesan cheese rinds that are removed before the beans are added in. The beans and broth are puréed. Place a variety of sautéed summer vegetables on top of the bean broth. Scatter seasoned croutons made from hard bread on top of the vegetables.
The boiled Parmesan rinds could be fed to pigs as part of a circular economy around the cheese.
*Chilled cauliflower soup – Boil cauliflower with milk and salt. Purée the soup and refrigerate. Add cream and serve. Use less liquid to make a creamy sauce for warm vegetables or dressing for salad.
Other winter vegetables could be used in this recipe: broccoli, carrots, celery root, rutabagas, turnips, parsnips, or a combination of these. For extra flavor, you could boil the vegetable with a sautéed onion.
*Chilled yogurt soup – Mix yogurt, vegetable stock (I make mine from reconstituted dehydrated mushrooms), canned chickpeas, canned lentils, salt and pepper, and olive oil together. (I would purée everything and then chill the soup.)
*Green bean salad – Mix green beans, fresh cheese (mozzarella, but burrata could also be used) and charred Savoy cabbage together and drizzle it all with Balsamic vinegar.
*Panada bread soup This simple soup is made by boiling Parmesan cheese rinds with water and removing them before adding cubes of hard bread. The bread and cheese broth are then puréed and served warm.
Massimo Bottura and other famous chefs put together Bread is Gold recipes to solve hunger in Milan, Italy by reducing food waste. In the process, they put together recipes that everyone can use to stretch money, making Bread is Gold a good book to buy.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
