When Richard Blais arrived to join other top-named chefs presenting cooking classes at the 2012 Atlanta Food & Wine Festival, he showed up with a bunch of leftovers.
“I had a chicken carcass in a pan, some celery tops, cilantro stems and the tails trimmed off of radishes,” said Blais, a winner of Bravo’s “Top Chef All-Stars.”
Blais, who is busy writing menus and getting the kitchen set up to open his latest Atlanta restaurant, The Spence, wasn’t taking shortcuts or trying to underwhelm his foodie fans. He was there to prove a point.
“It’s ethical and economical and even virtuous to use every part of a product,” Blais told his audience at the Loews Hotel. “The garbage can is not an option.”
Nose to tail, seed to stalk
It's said that good cooks know how to use "everything but the squeal" when preparing a whole hog. Blais takes that philosophy even further by applying the concept to all meats, fish and vegetables. His cooking class -- “Waste not. Taste a lot.” -- took folks back to the days when very little went to waste.
“Wasting food makes me sad," Blais said. "There’s great flavor in the stems and trimmings of vegetables. You can slice the cilantro stems and use them like chives. Corn cobs are the bones we add to stock to make corn soups taste even better.
"As chefs, we should ask ourselves ‘What do we do with the extras?’ such as the salsa verde I made with carrot tops during my demo.”
The menu at The Spence will feature both broccoli florets, for instance, and the stems that a lot of cooks discard.
“I think the broccoli stems are beautiful," Blais said. "We will make little pedestals out of them as rounds we can sit sautéed scallops or sweetbreads on top.”
Nutrition note: Broccoli stems are higher in fiber than the florets. And stems, seeds and stalks of most plants are high in antioxidant content.
Tail to fin
Using the whole fish is good for the palate and the planet, too. Father-and-son chef duo Norman and Justin Van Aken from Miami and Key West grilled a whole red snapper. “This is nose-to-tail cooking, too. We should be thankful for the use of every part of the fish, and without being too preachy, it’s respectful if you’re taking this creature from the sea,” said the elder Van Aken, who notes that cooking fish on the bone is much more flavorful than preparing just the filets.
Sharing some tips from their upcoming cookbook, "My Key West Kitchen," Van Aken suggests using the bones, head, fish and tails of a grilled fish to make a delicious fish stock. “It’s like brewing a cup of tea," he said. "Why not throw in some lemon balm, too?”
So cooking Southern today looks a lot like cooking Southern generations ago, prioritizing farm-fresh flavors and smart kitchen sense. It just took us a few years to get back to the past.
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