The Wasted Supper Club From Behind the Apron
You know that food in the back of your fridge? The stuff you always remember you have, but can’t think what to do with? What if you could use that food for good, even on its final days? The team at Dinner Ladies has come up with an event where the menu is based solely on food that would otherwise be going to waste. Instead of ignoring this wasted food, they entice their guests to pay homage to it by inviting them to bring their own scraps to the event. After a census of the inventory is taken, then comes the hard part: working out what the hell to do with it all. With only two hours on the clock, and dozens of awaiting dinner guests, the Dinner Ladies team prepares a full, multi-course, sharing feast out of just what was given to them; No road map and no planning. An exhibition of skill, sustainability, and surprise, the Wasted Supper Club never fails to impress. Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
The concept of the Wasted Supper Club was the thing that interested me most about Dinner Ladies. Sustainability involves making an active effort to be conscious of our impact on the environment, and our culture, with a mission to protect the futures of the coming generations. Dinner Ladies prides itself on focusing on sustainability in everything they do to make a better impact on the environment and the world, and Wasted Supper Club is a perfect cherry on top.
One could only imagine the complexity of putting on an event like this, considering the responsibility that falls on to a small, yet mighty, twelve person team like Dinner Ladies. This year's supper club, held at the Camley Street Natural Park, was the fourth year running such an event. The Dinner Ladies crew, all calm, cool, and collected must have had something more to say about the pressure of cooking under constraints, right? I went down to the kitchen the next day to finally get a better understanding of how the Wasted Supper Club feels from behind the apron. Here’s what some of our chefs had to say about the night altogether.
The moment of anticipation: seeing the ingredients
Questions for the Chefs:
Answers graciously given by Emily Plunket, Executive Chef & Co-Founder; Emily Gudeman, Shoot Catering Chef; and Victoria Thursby-Pelham, Apprentice Commis Chef.
Q: How does it feel to work the event?
A: “It's always a little unsettling to walk into a kitchen without a menu. But the venue was amazing and gave a lot of inspiration!” - Emily G
A: “There's always some anticipation before guests arrive as we are not sure what they are going to bring. This ignites a nervous excitement which very much carries the evening. It's fun and challenging.” -Emily P
Q: What are the challenges?
A: “The fun of the night came partly from the great English weather we were experiencing. A fully outdoor kitchen set with wind gusts of more than 25 km/h creates a bit of a challenge.”-Emily G
A: “Apart from the obvious difficulty that comes from not knowing what we are making for 40 people until two hours before (laughs), the timing becomes a steep obstacle as well as a creative challenge. Like you think ‘Ok great, we have lots of tomatoes, but how can we make them taste interesting and manage to feed everyone.’”- Emily P
Q: What are some things that make it fun/different from other events and supper clubs you put on?
A: “The spontaneity of the evening made it all the more exciting. Thinking on the spot and using what you have, even in terms of equipment, made us think way outside the box. We had only what was at our fingertips: a barbecue, a singular oven, a handful of blenders, and a plethora of miscellaneous food items.” - Vic.A: “The participation of the diners makes it really fun. The enthusiasm they bring during the cooking and after the final presentation really makes the whole night gratifying and all of the stress worth it. As a team of chefs we have to have superb communication in order to work together to create the dishes successfully within the given constraints.”- Emily P
Q: What are some things that make it fun/different from other events and supper clubs you put on?
A: “The spontaneity of the evening made it all the more exciting. Thinking on the spot and using what you have, even in terms of equipment, made us think way outside the box. We had only what was at our fingertips: a barbecue, a singular oven, a handful of blenders, and a plethora of miscellaneous food items.” - Vic.A: “The participation of the diners makes it really fun. The enthusiasm they bring during the cooking and after the final presentation really makes the whole night gratifying and all of the stress worth it. As a team of chefs we have to have superb communication in order to work together to create the dishes successfully within the given constraints.”- Emily P
The chefs even came up with some good ideas for you - yes you - to get involved in a similar manner! Try hosting your own Wasted Supper Club! Invite friends over to cook with only what you already have on hand, potluck or communal preparation style. To make it easier, Chef Vic suggested you “Split everyone into categories so that you get a variety of items. Then you get cooking! Take the pressure off of the typical supper club and enjoy the challenge and camaraderie of cooking together.” The chefs also had book recommendations, if this sort of lifestyle intrigues you. Try books like 30 Easy Ways to Join the Food Revolution by Ollie Hunter, The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz, and Eating for Pleasure, People and Planet by Tom Hunt.
Suppliers:
The Dinner Ladies team has put on this event for multiple years now, making sure to keep in their clients’ minds just how important sustainable efforts can be in the event planning and catering industry. In an effort to create a more holistic and circular story for sustainability, Dinner Ladies invited a few different industry leaders to host their own stalls around the event. A coffee station, a clothes swap, and even a live artist. These special suppliers also sat to dine with guests to continue the conversation. Some of these special guest suppliers kindly answered a few of my questions concerning their industry’s sustainability efforts in conjunction with the Wasted Supper Club.
Firstly, to give a shout of praise to our coffee supplier for the night, NewGround coffee - they are one of only seven coffee roasters in the whole of the UK that are B Corp certified. They also work to employ ex-convicted persons, and are fully carbon neutral. They obviously align themselves with the concept of sustainability in every facet of the word. In terms of the coffee industry, Business Development Manager, Mike Sim, had to say the following.
It is essential we prioritize sustainability in our industry. We make sure that we know and have good relationships with the farms our coffee comes from, to keep our chain of supply incredibly short and transparent. We also use the most energy efficient equipment in our roastery. Through the entire coffee making process from farm to cup, the most energy waste comes from the final stage of making the coffee: the coffee machine. The coffee industry is one with a long and deep history, yet that doesn’t stop New Ground from making new strides for the better. https://www.newgroundcoffee.com/
Along with our coffee supplier, on the night we hosted Nia Beynon, a London-based Graphic Designer, Digital Illustrator, and Artist, who was able to dazzle guests with a live-painting experience during the event. Nia used scraps left over from the packaging of the food brought to the supper club. She invited guests to help her assemble the collage in real time, and said this about her experience.
The Wasted Supper Club was an amazing event to get people conversing about sustainability in all aspects of life. The wonderful thing about art is its ability to create beauty from little to nothing; and to give life to a tangible piece that may be low in cost but becomes high in value. I often use recycled materials, so for me the Wasted Supper Club was a fun way to align my own personal sustainability efforts to the conversation with others, brands, and consumers alike. https://www.niabeynon.com/
In another interesting turn of events for the night, Mimmo Studios happily joined the frame to bring about a clothes swap for participants of the supper club to enjoy. Mimmo Studios, a womens-wear brick and mortar store located in the Cheltenham area, was founded by two women looking to shift the way consumers see retail. They ethically source their inventory and create a bridge between sustainability and style in every facet of their operations. Co-founders Katie and Lil, enjoyed working with Dinner Ladies on the Wasted Supper Club because of the obvious parallels between the two companies: women-led and sustainability focused.
Working on the Wasted Supper Club was a real treat for us. The communal sharing aspect of the event and the clothes swap created an ease of communication between the guests making it easy to have open conversations around the topic of reducing waste and sharing resources. From all the reading we've done around sustainability, the main message we see repeated is that we can't solve the climate crisis as individuals. Working with Dinner Ladies meant we were able to spend the evening with like minded guests who were genuinely interested in making changes. https://mimmostudios.com/
Lotus crisp topped with kimchi and shaved apple
Guests also had the opportunity to learn more from Lifeafterhummus, a surplus food bank who works with businesses to support the community while also reducing wastage costs. For more information on how to join their community-benefit society, and meet your environmental, social, and governance targets, find them at http://www.lifeafterhummus.com/
And to make the night all the better, the leftover leftovers were packed into 30+ meals to be distributed by the wonderful City Harvest team, a long standing charity partner of Dinner Ladies. City Harvest prides itself on being London’s original food charity responsible for rescuing food and redistributing it to over 375 charities and organizations. The food charity's impact is threefold: preventing industry food waste by rescuing perfectly edible surplus, preventing greenhouse gas emissions from food that would otherwise end in landfill, and providing a lifeline through free food to Londoners in most need. https://cityharvest.org.uk/
All of our night’s suppliers are doing so much work in their own fields to make waves in the sustainability movement, and we couldn’t be happier to have friends in vastly different places, all seeking the same end goal. The Wasted Supper Club was a complete and utter success, and I am so glad to have heard more from every background player as to how the night affected them. If you get the chance to go to the Wasted Supper Club next year, I would highly, highly recommend!
Special thanks to our wonderful suppliers for the night, who are linked above, as well as our lovely photographer Nic Roques (https://thefrenchnic.squarespace.com/). Additional gratitude for RAPPED FLOWERS, (https://www.wrappedflowers.co.uk/), Urban Herbs (https://urban-herbs.co.uk/), and Life After Hummus
If you love nature, be sure to check out the Camley Street Natural Park, and get involved with the London Wildlife Trust, an organization making waves to conserve the wildlife of the capital. https://www.wildlondon.org.uk/nature-reserves/camley-street-natural-park
