Off the beaten track

An introduction to our newest foodie columnist, Martyn Odell, AKA Lagom Chef.

Somehow, I have managed to build a huge following showing people how to cook in a slightly unhinged, chaotic and fun way, all while giving a solution to food waste by following my ethos of eat the food you buy! One of my favourite quotes, attributed to Albert Einstein, says that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” but what does this have to do with food or Cornwall? 

Let me fill you in…

I have been working in some form of foodie capacity for over 20 years, I wouldn’t say I have done it all but I have given it a good shot. I started where every humble chef starts – as a pot wash – then slowly worked my way around local restaurants and catering companies in Essex before realising that I needed to know a bit more about cooking, so took a four-week cooking course in Ashburton, one step closer to Cornwall!”

I then spent the next six years working in restaurants in London, Andrew Edmunds to start with, then moved on to a horrendous restaurant that doesn’t deserve word count, where I saw the dark side of the industry. It was at this point I was burnt out with cooking and pursued a career in photography so went to uni to study. The course was pretty low-lift and I found myself heading back to the kitchen to fill the void of chaos! I worked full time at a cookery school while at uni and filled any spare time I had doing contract catering, seeing inside some of the biggest and best hotels London had to offer, if only for a day plating pesto and mozzarella stacks! 

It was at this point things got a little weird… my love of fitness and food collided and I started working with Joe Wicks, doing recipe development and combining my love of food and fitness. It turns out there is only so much chat of midget trees and Lucy Bee a man can handle, so I left to live with my now wife in Switzerland. My time there was spent running in the mountains, building up my consultancy business and trying to discover what I really wanted to do. Speaking with a friend who worked in a mountain resort, he said his business was struggling due to climate change and the seasons being unpredictable. I got on my toboggan and went straight home and googled “food climate change” and the top hit was food waste. Food what?! This was my calling… solve food waste and become a hero!

Remember the quote? “Insanity is etc…” The more I read about food waste, the more my jaw dropped to the floor! Looking at the data, the numbers hadn’t changed in years and the biggest piece of the food waste pie was household food waste –  a whopping 70% of all food waste comes from UK homes! Looking back over my time in the industry, the stats blew my mind, as I can recall countless times of being at events where food was just scraped into a bin afterwards. I remember one time a whole 90kg tuna was butchered for a demo – amazing skill and fascinating to watch – but the shocking part was that the tuna couldn’t be sold, so it went in the bin. I think my team ended up living off sashimi and tuna steaks for about a month!

It’s shocking, though, that it’s not hospitality, nor manufacturing, but us silly people at home who are wasting the most food. So, this has been me for the last five years, taking all of my skills and teaching people how to cook and reconnect with food in a non-pretentious, fun and chaotic fashion. The solution to food waste isn’t complicated: you just need to eat the food you buy. It’s so simple! As my channels have grown and I have got busier with life, I really believe that this is the answer – no big scary climate words, just
eating food.

This wild journey over the last few years has allowed me to travel and meet some amazing people who are doing great things with food, and this is what I want to shine a light on. I will be writing a regular feature piece looking at some of Cornwall’s hidden foodie gems that you may or may not have heard of. I’ll be taking you behind the scenes to see what makes these foodie places great, spotlighting the independent suppliers these places use and showing you how many magical spots there are on your doorstep.

The smaller establishments that grow from word of mouth, set up food stalls at local markets and suppliers that battle the elements will be front and centre. You can Google where to get a Michelin-star set menu, but you can’t Google what it takes to keep the lights on for the companies and suppliers that are the backbone of communities. Hospitality is hard, like really hard, and when you make a big chunk of your money from seasonal trade, these local places are the heartbeat of towns and need protecting.

Why me? Good question! My dream since meeting my wife has been to call Cornwall home and bring something to the area we moved to. So, hopefully one day when I am a struggling hospitality start-up someone will write a piece about me! 

Buckle in and enjoy the ride.

LAGOM CHEF
LagomChef
The Lagom Chef
lagomchef
www.lagomchef.com