Bakery Biz, September-October, 2021
A book by Chef Davinder Kumar commemorating his five decades of culinary excellence
SECOND MEALS is a book written by Chef Davinder Kumar, Vice President, F&B, Le Meridien, Delhi, and President, Indian Culinary Forum. Ask him what led him to author this book. “In my five decades of culinary experience, I have witnessed a lot of food going waste, right from the time vegetables and fruits get peeled, deseeded, de stalked, so that what goes on the table is perfect and beautiful. I would think, did our ancestors waste o much? I remember my granny using every bit of the produce, nothing went waste. She’d create wonders with peels, stalks, leaves, seeds, stems, and flowers. SECOND MEALS is a book written with a lot of care keeping in mind nutrition, health, innovation and sustainability in mind. It is my way of contributing a wee bit to solve the world’s hunger problem.”
SECOND MEALS was launched this October, with a lot of fanfare, at Le Meridien in Delhi. This book commemorates and celebrates Chef Davinder Kumar’s five decades of culinary excellence. The event was attended by Food Critic Pushpesh Pant, FDCI President Sunil Sethi, Alphons Joseph Kananthanam, former India Minister for Tourism, Dr Gunita Singh, Virender Oberoi, Chef Sabyasachi Gorai, and other dignitaries.
Sanjay Arya Founder Shubhi Publication said, “saving natural resources will help sustain life for many more years as destroying them will create doom for mankind. This book is an effort to save the environment by using food scraps which otherwise being burnt pollute the environment and this book will also help in solving the food problem for the
developing countries like us and others with nutritive values.”
The art of cooking through Food Scraps is a new way and style that encourages cooking and eating every single part of the vegetables and fruits. It is a delicious way to maximise nutrition and minimise food wastage. Just like the animals, which are consumed from nose to tail, the idea is that vegetables and fruits also should be consumed as a whole without wasting any part of them.
All this doesn’t have to make cooking through food scraps, boring and unpalatable. There are more than 150 recipes in the book comprising something as simple as detox water, and as complex as sumptuous main courses, with snacks, appetisers, soups, smoothies, bread, chutneys, pickles, salads, desserts, and even salts and sugars all powerpacked within its pages. SECOND MEALS, gives a breather and a new life to all that would have otherwise gone into the bin. In a nutshell, it is ‘Art of Cooking with Food Scraps’.
“Food Scraps infused with creativity can be transformed into a core ingredient. This innovative use of food scraps should be looked at as a necessity. Zero waste is a valuable move to shift to an environmentally conscious ideology thereby transforming society and doing our bit for the ecology. Cooking with every last little end, makes it more fun, creative and less expensive,” said Chef Davinder Kumar.
