The project by Massimo Bottura to feed Milan’s poor using food waste generated from the pavilions of Milan Expo is helping to raise awareness about the problem but is also the start of something that could be much bigger than what Massimo Bottura might have imagined.
He says that interest in this project is growing to the extent that there could be a ‘Refettorio Ambrosiano’ in New York and one in Lima. “Daniel Humm left this place with tears in his eyes after he came here. He was emotional and said he wanted to take this project with him to New York. Gaston Acurio, the Peruvian chef who will cook at the Refettorio towards the end of June said this is such an extraordinary project that he wants to have something similar in the poorest quarters in Lima,” Massimo said.
Massimo Bottura is the chef of Osteria Francescana in Modena, recently voted 2nd world’s best restaurant. We have already urged our readers to help Massimo in this project by donating. Trust us, this is a worthy cause. You can find the link to donate to this project here.
Scatti di Gusto has a video (below) of Massimo describing the project. It also lists the chefs (both Italian and international) who will be cooking voluntarily at Refettorio Ambrosiano (it is in Italian so we are taking the liberty to translate it).
Massimo says that Refettorio Ambrosiano is his reply to the question posed at Milan Expo on how to feed the planet. “For me, it all starts with a fight against waste.”
He uses a metaphor to explain how an artist wanted to create a work of art using 100 million sunflower seeds. He helped people from a whole village to work towards this aim. For many years, the people had no work because they had previously devoted their life to working for the emperor. So the artist helped to save the village by enabling all artisans to work and create these 100 million sunflower seeds.
“The seeds then start to sprout and for me this is the significance of this project,” Massimo says. “1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted each year, a fourth of which would be enough to feed all those in need.”
“If we use our knowledge and our culture to generate awareness and to make people more responsible we can lead the way. We want to show what we can do with dry bread, a potato skin, with a chicken carcass, with milk that may expire tomorrow. Like this we are setting an example for the whole world,” he said.
Massimo added that the ideas are already spreading. “In Copenhagen, they have No Waste Mondays. In London, chefs are collecting waste to turn into compost which is then used in their fields. The US Pavillion tells us to go and pick up the courgettes and tomatoes when these are ready to be picked up, so that they can be used in the Refettorio. France has recently enacted a law which stops supermarkets from throwing away food waste by obliging them to give the food that would otherwise be thrown away to charities.”
The list of chefs who will be cooking at Refettorio Ambrosiano is the following:
Italian chefs
- Massimo Bottura
- Luca Fantin
- Ugo Alciati
- Davide Oldani
- Andrea Berton
- Viviana Varese
- Carlo Cracco
- Nadia Santini
- Giancarlo Perbellini
- Norbert Niederkofler
- Davide Scabin
- Mauro Ulliassi
- Moreno Cedroni
- Niko Romito
- Antonia Klugmann
- Heinz Beck
- Gennaro Esposito
- Pino Cuttaia
- Fratelli Cerea
- Ciccio Sultano
- Cristina Bowerman
- Sara Papa
- Matias Perdomo
- Nicola Portinari
- Fulvio Pierangelini
- Emanuele Scarello
- Alessandro Negrini e Fabio Pisani
- Giorgio e Gian Pietro Damini
- Marta Pulini
- Alma – Scuola di cucina italiana
International chefs
- Michel Troisgros
- Alain Ducasse
- Mauro Collagreco
- Yannick Alleno
- Petter Nilsson
- René Redzepi
- Matthew Orlando
- Andoni Luis Aduriz
- Yoshiro Narisawa
- Mario Batali
- Daniel Humm
- Daniel Patterson
- Enrique Olvera
- Carlos Garcia
- Alex Atala
- Virgilio Martinez
- Rodolfo Guzman
- Gaston Acurio
- Ana Ros
- Gastromotiva
- Basque Culinary Center.
- Dario Tomaselli +Higgins (George Brown Chef School – Canada)
- John Winter Russell
- Jeremy Charles
- Micha Tsumara
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