The Climavore Project is trying to get restaurants to introduce climate-friendly menus.
We all have heard about being a carnivore, omnivore, locavore, vegetarian or vegan – all of whose labels are derived from the ingredients being consumed. But did you know that there are people who are climavores? It all started with the Climavore Project.
Cooking Sections, founded in 2013 in London by Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe, uncovers the systems that organise the world through food. They began exploring the overlapping borders of art, architecture, ecology, and geopolitics through site-responsive installation, performance, and video.
Since 2015, they have been working on the Climavore Project along with several scientists, chefs, farmers, policymakers, and practitioners from a variety of fields that investigate how to eat as human habits affect the planet and that results in climate change. The collective will assist a long-term approach to help convert the food served at UK cultural institutions into a menu that tackles the climate crisis. In 2021, Cooking Sections was nominated for the Turner Prize. They were nominated for the Visible Award for socially active activities and received the Special Prize at the 2019 Future Generation Art Prize. Daniel has been awarded the Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize for Being Shellfish in 2020. Their newest book, Salmon: A Red Herring, was released by isolarii (2020) in conjunction with the Tate Britain's Art Now exhibition of the same name.
By addressing ocean pollution from open-net salmon farms, the notion of climavore seeks to reimagine and restructure food systems by developing this method of eating, in response to a human-caused climate emergency in our planet. To become a climavore, several restaurants at museums around the UK are removing farmed salmon from their menus. As a substitution, they add cuisines with seaweeds, sea vegetables, and bivalves, which promote marine ecosystems and enhance water quality.
Many restaurants are embarking on a partnership with Cooking Sections by adapting to Climavore menus. In Manchester, at the award-winning restaurant Whitworth, the Tidal Wrap and Grain Salad is made with regenerative coastal ingredients and filter-feeders. At another well known restaurant Benugo, you will get a Climavore Ocean Greens Wrap with dulse hummus, grilled carrots, piquant peppers, cabbage, red pepper, cucumber, lemon, spinach in a multigrain wrap and Climavore Grains Salad with beets, grilled carrots, spicy peppers, flakes Cornish dulse, courgette, spinach, omega seeds and lemon tahini dressing.
Even the packaging has been rethought - they are offered in grease-proof and water-resistant packaging. The boxes are recyclable, compostable at home, and biodegradable as they crafted a covering made entirely of seaweed and plants.