Chefs Cook Up Freshest Ideas for Drought
Picture this: ancient Greece, a group of thirsty, mutinous sailors on a maritime vessel demanding fresh water whilst surrounded by never-ending ocean. Fearing for his life, a meek, yet enterprising, cook in the galley proceeds to devise a way to purify seawater using evaporation. Voila! The birth of desalination.
Early May 2015, California’s water regulators adopted sweeping, unprecedented restrictions on how people, governments and businesses can use water amid the state’s ongoing drought. The State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) approved rules that force cities to limit watering on public property, encourage homeowners to let their lawns die and impose mandatory water-savings targets for the hundreds of local agencies and cities that supply water to people throughout the state.
The cheapest, smartest, fastest way to address the drought is to use less water.” — Felicia Marcus, Chair, SWRCB
Beyond eliminating personal showering, many Californians are taking the necessary steps to prevent water waste in their lives. In fact, due to historical droughts most Californians are well-experienced and creative water conservationists. As a result, some pretty resourceful ideas have percolated to the surface over the years. During a parched spell in the late 70s, California’s water officials invited citizens to submit ideas to the “Resources Evaluation Office” producing over 4,000 letters, telegrams and postcards (pre-Internet days). Here are some recurring themes:
A Snow Train: import snow from the East Coast. To use snow to make up the water supply deficit, it was calculated that every train tank car in the country would need to make 500 trips — for a total cost of $437 billion (CA Dept. of Water Resources, 1978).
Iceberg Delivery: drag a massive block of frozen fresh water from Antarctica. Back in 1977, a Saudi prince, seeking new water supplies for the Middle East, offered to pay the $7,500 to fly a chunk of iceberg to his kingdom — an estimated $30,000 in current USD. (Arctic habitats are having enough real estate problems; no thank you.)
PNW Pipeline: a new twist on this suggestion has been spearheaded by actor William Shatner who wants to crowdfund a $30 billion pipeline originating in the Pacific Northwest.
While necessity may be the mother of invention, it’s chef ideas that present some of the more fetching water conservation concepts.
Without new ideas, success can become stale.” — Celebrity Chef Anthony Bourdain
Chilled River Rocks: about seven years ago, the executive chef for Celebrity Cruises replaced ice beds on their 24/7, all-you-can eat-buffets with smooth, chilled river rocks. The rocks actually maintain cold longer than ice and save each ship about 6,300 gallons of water per week — not to mention the energy costs of unplugging an ice machine that was typically running 24 hours a day. The water savings, from that one small change, is equivalent to the annual water use of three U.S. families.
The Air Rinser: this year, John Cox, executive chef of Sierra Mar at the Post Ranch Inn, devised a method for rinsing plates with an air compressor saving the restaurant 800 gallons of water per day, or nearly 300,000 gallons per year. If California’s 60,000 restaurants all switched to compressed air to scrape plates for an investment of $300 (cost of an air compressor + shipping), the state could save more than 17 billion gallons of water per year.
Drought Friendly Recipes: Emmy nominated chef Nathan Lyon has developed a series of recipes with the intention of incorporating more foods into our daily lives that have a much lower water footprint.
Just a few water smart innovations from a chef’s kitchen.
Hey, do you think we should ask William Shatner if he’d lend his celebrity to crowdfund the $1 trillion required to update the U.S. drinking water system?
