from Grist Magazine:
15 Green Chefs26 Jul 2007
Savor our list of eco-conscious chefs, then dish on your own favorites in the comments section at the bottom of the page. 1. Alice Waters, Chez Panisse, Berkeley, Calif., U.S. Thirty years ago, the words "imported from France" signified the height of status and taste on U.S. restaurant menus. Today, the phrases "locally grown" and "organic" have taken over that function (naming the actual farm earns extra points). For that transformation, we largely have Berkeley restaurateur Alice Waters to thank. Founded in 1971 by Waters and a hedonistic band of hippie-bohemians, Chez Panisse quickly established itself as a temple to European farmhouse-style cooking: simple techniques applied to spectacularly fresh and lovingly grown ingredients. But Waters has done much more than inspire high-end chefs nationwide to become "foragers" of the best things growing in their "foodsheds" -- or provide incomparable food for those who can afford the restaurant's $85 prix fixe menu. By challenging the dreadful U.S. school-lunch system, she has also worked hard to make healthy, sustainably grown food a reality for all citizens of the Fast Food Nation. Her innovative Edible Schoolyard program in a Berkeley middle school has emerged as a model worldwide for how healthy, organically grown food can be a tool to enrich kids' minds even as it nourishes their bodies.
2. Dan Barber, Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Pocantico Hills, N.Y., U.S. Of all the U.S. chefs rushing down -- and extending -- the path blazed by Alice Waters, Dan Barber may be the most important. When he opened Blue Hill Restaurant in Manhattan's Greenwich Village in 2000, he quickly became as famous for his fanatically sourced ingredients as for his inventive cooking. He hauled in much of his restaurant's produce from his family's farm in the Berkshire region of western Massachusetts, and bought the rest at Union Square Greenmarket, where the curly-haired chef became a fixture. In 2004, he began living the dream of every chef who sees cooking as an expression of the surrounding countryside: he opened a restaurant in the middle of a diversified organic farm. Located 30 miles up the Hudson River from New York City, Blue Hill at Stone Barns is the centerpiece of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, an 80-acre educational farm situated on an old estate owned by the Rockefeller family. Barber transforms the pristine produce of that farm into some of the nation's most celebrated cuisine. And like Alice Waters, Barber isn't content to merely cook glorious food for the well-heeled. He's also a leading voice in the effort to reform U.S. farm policy, which, he argues, is currently rigged in favor of environmentally destructive industrial agriculture.
3. Alain Passard, L'Arpège, Paris, FranceFor years, Alain Passard had been classed among the world's greatest chefs. His Paris restaurant, L'Arpège, had held a coveted three-star rating from Michelin since 1996, and he had won global fame for his celebrated run in Japan's Iron Chef competition. But in 2001, Passard shocked the culinary world by abruptly pulling meat from his menu. "I was struggling to have a creative relationship with a corpse, a dead animal!" he would later explain. While his ban on animal flesh isn't total -- he still uses some fish and poultry -- he has shifted his creative energies fully to vegetables. As he moves deeper into what he calls a new cuisine vegetale, Passard has turned to growing his own vegetables on his permaculture garden 120 miles southwest of Paris. He hauls the pristine produce into Paris daily by high-speed train. And the European culinary establishment, which initially recoiled from Passard's new direction, has returned in force. L'Arpège has held on to its third Michelin star -- and reservations are as hard as ever to come by.
4. Fergus Henderson, St. John Restaurant, London, U.K. If Passard startled the culinary world by renouncing meat, London chef Fergus Henderson turned it on its head by embracing animal flesh in its entirety. His logic goes like this: If you're going to eat animals, it's wasteful to focus simply on the center cuts: chops, steaks, breasts. Instead, meat eaters must embrace the "whole beast" -- the title of his celebrated cookbook -- including what's known as the nasty bits: heart, tongue, spleen, etc. In the 1990s, when London chefs were rescuing their city's culinary reputation by looking to southern Europe for inspiration, Henderson was doing stripped-down, sublime versions of homely British classics, leaning heavily on offal -- always from humanely raised and slaughtered animals. His "nose-to-tail" ethic has sparked a trend in the United States. Not only are many chefs insisting on using only locally raised, pastured meat, but they're also educating their clientele on what Henderson has called the "set of delights, textural and flavorsome, that lie beyond the fillet."
5. Chris Cosentino, Incanto, San Francisco, Calif., U.S. In a sense, Cosentino can be thought of as the love child of Alice Waters and Fergus Henderson. Cosentino runs Incanto's kitchen as a showcase for the wares of Northern California's farmers, as you would expect from someone who counts Chez Panisse on his resume. And he's also probably the No. 1 U.S. proponent of "nose-to-tail" eating -- he's so committed to the idea that he writes a blog called Offal Good. (A recent post offered a recipe for duck testicles -- a dish which, Cosentino boasts, "a growing number of guests are ordering ... and really enjoying.") Incanto also sparked a trend among Bay Area restaurants to stop selling highly profitable but energy-sucking bottled water. Incanto now offers house-purified still and sparkling water to guests at no charge. .....(more)
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