I admit that frugality and old fashioned miserliness is not terribly fashionable at the moment, but being green, saving the world and eating fabulous food is. One of my hobby horses has always been food waste. This was probably partly due to being brought up by a post-war mother and continually being told to 'clean my plate', and being reminded that if I didn't want the food that was put in front of me, there were many starving children in the world who did. Well, of course, being a child all this was water off a ducks back. I only wished that they would send the wretched dinner to Africa or wherever.
It was when I moved to the Limousin, the rural heartland of France, and started to explore the traditional cuisine of this region that I was struck by the number of recipes that specified 'stale bread' as a main or essential ingredient. This was a very poor area of France, and the people who lived here were mostly farmers. They knew how hard it was to grow, harvest, store and cook the food on the table and I expect very little went to waste. This set me thinking. Mostly, I had given the scraps from the table and old bread to 1. The Dog 2. The Cat 3. The Hens 4. The Geese 5. The Sheep - in that order, but really, it doesn't do to feed the animals on perfectly good (if not perfectly fresh) baguettes!
When, after several years of building and restoring, we opened
Les Trois Chênes Bed & Breakfast the problem was compounded. More bread that has to be served absolutely fresh, and more waste. So this blog is devoted to uses and recipes from all over the world designed to transform old bread into delicious gourmet dishes.
I would be delighted to receive your ideas, comments and recipes.
