Somewhere around 1997, just after retiring and buying my first restaurant, I was intrigued by a prep cook from Jamaica. He was, I thought at first, a little strange, quiet, hard working and very resourceful. He grew up in a place that most of us in this country would call poor to almost homeless. Shacks that blew down after each storm that passed through the island of Jamaica is what his family called home.

Food was scarce during the prep cook’s childhood days. He watched as his mother scrounged around the tourist areas for “fresh” garbage. The tops and ends from onions, the stems of peppers, seeds and discards from papaya, yucca peels and anything thrown out behind the restaurants where well heeled travelers stop for food. From these roots, our cook learned how to preserve, live and make some of the most awesome stocks you could imagine!

Everyday I would roam through the kitchen and see three pots on the stove. Each held a gallon or more of water and was distinguished by their contents. One always held the remnants of almost every scrap of waste from vegetables, another held all the shrimp tales, fish bones and seafood trimmings and the third had the fat, bones and skin from beef and pork waste or some days, chicken. By the end of the cook’s workday, he strained down the remnants of the three pots into two or three quarts of these cloudy looking liquids.

I discovered that he fed the entire staff. Cooks, dishwashers, servers and managers savored daily concoctions that generally ended up with lentils, beans, chickpeas or some other indescribable ingredient. To my amazement, these soups were far superior to the items available on the menu. The Kitchen Manager explained that most of our recipes were started from bases. Our Jamaican prep cook changed all of that. He not only revised our recipes, but started a daily soup that outsold the three already on the menu.

When looking for ways to control food costs, perhaps the place to start is the trash. What are you throwing away everyday that could be used? Many common restaurant dishes originated from food that otherwise would have found the dumpster. Potato skins and twice baked potatoes came from left over baked potatoes. Many great fish stews and gumbos got their start from carcasses of cleaned fish. Sauces made from broken pieces of shrimp, scallops and fish fillets are flavorful and easy to prepare. Bread crumbs and croutons made from stale bread have more flavor than commercial counterparts.

The bottom line is…… the bottom line! 

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook