We're proud to announce that our friends at What On Earth are providing 29kg of organic chopped tomatoes for the Alternative Christmas Banquet, which takes place from 6-9 December 2012. This event is being held in conjunction with the inspirational food charity, FoodCycle, and Tom Hunt’s Forgotten Feast, a fantastic restaurant that supports ugly, unwanted and unloved food that would normally go to waste. The event will be held at the Brunel Museum in London and will be based on the idea of having a ‘Forgotten Feast of 7 Fishes’. For vegetarians there is also the option of an Italian Vegetarian Banquet. The Feast of 7 Fishes’ is eaten on Christmas Eve in Italy and traditionally 7 or 13 dishes were served after the seven sacraments and the 13 apostles. The idea was to bring lots of people together to eat.
- Logo courtesy of foodcycle.org.uk
- Photo courtesy of tomsfeast.co.uk
Renowned eco chef, Tom Hunt, will be cooking the dishes for the event and will source wild foods, misshapen vegetables, unusual cuts of meat and fish that are often neglected or not normally seen on British menus. The feast will include options such as carpaccio of scallop, risotto nero with cuttlefish, pumpkin and sage risotto, forgotten fish stew and garbanzo stew with borlotti and glut tomatoes.
- Photo courtesy of foodcycle.org.uk
What On Earth’s Organic Chopped Tomatoes will be used within the feast and we are extremely proud of the company for donating this food. Both Simply Nectar and What On Earth are very eco-friendly companies so we’re always keen to help the environment in any way we can. By contributing products to the event What On Earth is able to cut food waste, which is a growing problem. As a country we throw away around 7.2 million tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year, which costs us around £12 billion. Also, according to FoodCycle, an estimated 400,000 tonnes of surplus food can be reclaimed each year from the food retailer industry to be made into healthy and nutritious meals. These are shocking statistics and we are happy to help in any way possible.
The Forgotten Feast of 7 Fishes is set to be a fantastic event and we encourage anybody who hasn’t already got tickets to try and get their hands on the remaining few. Tickets are available from £35 and all proceeds will go to FoodCycle, which helps serve meals to people at risk from food poverty. It also aids the creation of more Forgotten Feast events. For those who attend the event on the 6th, 7th and 8th December, there will be an extra treat. Guests will be offered an excluded guided descent into the underground Grand Entrance Hall of Brunel’s Thames Tunnel. Closed to the public for over 140 years, this was the first tunnel under a river anywhere in the world and is one of the great wonders of the Victorian Age.
- Photo courtesy of IanVisits.co.uk
As well as buying tickets, volunteering options are available. Please see the event website for more details. The delicious menu for the event is as follows:
Forgotten Feast of 7 Fishes Menu
- An Italian inspired Christmas feast -
Due to the sheer volume of food surplus we are able to pick the highest quality ingredients. As we are sourcing surplus food the menu is subject to change.
Antipasti
Carpaccio of scallop frills and megrim sole
Baccala mantecato - salted dab pate with saffron
Salmon trim fish cakes with aioli verde
We hope some of you can make it along to the event and we hope you enjoy all the food...especially What On Earth's Organic Chopped Tomatoes!
Simply tomatoes,
Simply Nectar
