DUBAI – During Global Goals Week at Expo 2020 Dubai, six international chefs from Chef’s Manifesto each prepared a menu for a special Ministerial Dinner that championed sustainability and future food security.
The six chefs cooking for the dinner, which took place last night (15 January), are Sahar Al Awadhi, representing the UAE, as well as Grace Ramirez, Evan Hanczor, Arthur Potts Dawson, Conor Spacey and Coco Reinarhz. The event tied in with Global Goals Week, which runs until 22 January and will highlight the importance of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Emirati chef Al Awadhi planned and sourced much of the fresh produce from the UAE itself. Planning what is on a menu in advance, she said, is the most important step to allow chefs and restauranteurs to work with local producers and source a seasonal menu, with minimal carbon footprint.
Sahar Al Awadhi said: “The main challenge here is the climate. It is obviously difficult to grow everything, but I think farmers have found ways around that, for example by building greenhouses. Agrotech is really growing in the UAE and the region is in the process of creating bio domes.”
A trip to Emirates Bio Farm – an organic farm with sites in Dubai, Al Ain and Abu Dhabi – has been a key part of the journey leading up to the Global Goals Ministerial Dinner. The farm uses innovative, climate-friendly growing solutions such as low water irrigation methods.
New York-based chef Evan Hanczor, who operates his own farm-to-table concept and works closely with farmers in New York, said: “It feels like a big part of the future of food production here in Dubai and hopefully in other parts of the world.”
Al Awadhi, whose day job ordinarily takes her to the pastry section of the Burj Al Arab, steered out of her confectionary comfort zone for the task, with a full menu of Emirati classics reenvisaged with contemporary interpretations. Her reinterpretations of Emirati staples included traditional Emirati cheese chammi (which she described as similar to ricotta or feta), teamed with locally sourced onions (now widely grown in the UAE, she added) and dates (a regional hero ingredient). The dish also used ghee made from rendered animal fat, showcasing an original Bedouin principle of zero waste and nose-to-tail eating.
Al Awadhi said: “Animal ghee is used a lot in Emirati cuisine, because the Bedouins used every aspect of the lamb or goat to make sure that there was no waste. So that is something that I highlight across the menu.”
Hanczor said the only way to achieve global sustainability and food security was to start with local solutions, suited to local needs and challenges: “For me, I was thinking about the different places I’ve lived, and my belief that sustainability has to be rooted in local tradition, local agriculture, local solutions.”
Sustainable choices informed Hanczor’s menu ingredient choices, such as oysters, which have a vital function in cleaning up waterways and protecting against storm surges by acting as natural breakwater, and sweet potatoes, which offer high nutritional content, versus what they demand from the soil.
For Irish chef Spacey, the solution to a more secure food future lies in looking back to historical methods. Alongside childhood memories of growing up in coastal Wexford, this philosophy of learning from historical methods has inspired Spacey to theme his plant-focussed menu around seaweed.
Conor Spacey said: “My menu is showcasing the past in Ireland, because that to me is an answer to the future. Hundreds of years ago, seaweed played a huge part in our culture. We used seaweed in our diet, to feed animals, and to fertilise land to grow vegetables. I want to bring that back. A lot of solutions for the future can be found in the past.”
Ramirez is also committed to the Sustainable Development Goal of gender equality, and not only tries her best to offer opportunities to women, but also to source from female suppliers where possible. One such example was the perfect addition to her sustainable menu: Ramirez added a touch of chapulines (grasshoppers), for those brave enough to try. It is a famously sustainable protein source popular in Mexico, and when she is based at home in New York, whenever she can, she sources from a female supplier who operates a grasshopper farm in the city.
The biggest challenge the chefs and restauranteurs face is educating consumers, Grace Ramirez said: “Chefs have a responsibility to educate the consumer about what is grown and available here. That’s how to change things.”