New Covent Garden wholesaler and seasonality champion Vernon Mascarenhas has been doing his bit to tackle food waste in Vietnam, volunteering at a soup kitchen while on holiday on the island of Phú Quốc.
Mascarenhas helped collect surplus vegetables from Dương Đông wholesale market before chopping vegetables and polishing dishes with a team of local volunteers at the nearby Dưỡng Tâm Chay soup kitchen.
“A member of staff at my hotel asked if I could volunteer and help cook produce from the market,” he said. “I met the other volunteers at 6am when the market closed, we picked up the unsold veg that would otherwise have been thrown out, we loaded it onto scooters, and we took it to the kitchen.”
The soup kitchen, which caters for homeless people and others without the means to feed themselves, served 250 people in just two hours during Mascarenhas’ voluntary shift.
On the menu were different types of aubergine, okra, various leafy vegetables and a special kind of cucumber, among other fresh produce.
“The interesting thing for me was that it showed that soup kitchens operate in more or less the same way no matter where they are in the world,” Mascarenhas said.
“They’re all based on the same principles: reducing food waste, volunteering, and helping those in need, without discriminating between individuals.”
One thing that did differ was the way the vegetables were chopped. “I suggested julienning the carrots but they were having none of it,” Mascarenhas said.
